Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/151

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FOSSIL MAN (EARLY RECORDS)
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right bank of the river Düssel. The opening to the cave was from a small terrace in a steep limestone cliff, about 60 feet above the bed of the river and 110 feet below the surface of the plateau above. The cave has long ago been quarried away, but its dimensions are reported to have been about 16 feet in length, 11 feet in breadth, and 8 feet in height. Lyell gives a section showing a natural rent connecting the cave with the surface of the plateau above. The very existence of this rent, at any time, is categorically denied by M. G. de Mortillet. "Dans un dessin," says he, "qui court tous les ouvrages de paléoethnologie, Lyell représente un couloir qui partant du fond de la grotte remonte en s'arquant jusqu'à la surface du plateau. C'est une pure conception théorique. Ce couloir n'a jamais été constaté." (Le Préhistorique, p. 232.)

On the uneven floor of the cave lay a mass of consolidated mud about 5 feet in depth, without stalagmitic deposits, but sparingly mixed with rounded fragments of chert.

"In the removing of this deposit "(writes Dr Fuhlrott, as translated by Mr Busk) "the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured in the most positive terms by two labourers who were employed to clear out the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me and placed in security. But, as the importance of the discovery was not at the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to this circumstance it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skeleton came into my possession." (Huxley's Collected Essays, vii., p. 170.)

The discovery was made in August 1856, and Dr Fuhlrott arrived on the scene only in time to save and secure the skullcap, the two thigh- and arm-bones, portions of the forearms, a fragment of the right shoulder-blade, the left ilium, and five fragments of ribs.

No other animal remains, with the exception of a bear's tooth, of which neither the position nor character was determined, were discovered in the cave. Professor Schaaffhausen describes the cranium as covered, both on its outer and inner surface, with a profusion of minute dendritical crystallisations; from which, however, no chronological inference can be drawn,

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