Chapter 12

[CT]For typical section of a glacial terrace in Ohio, seep. 227.

Fig. 71.—The smaller is the palæolith from Newcomerstown, the larger from Amiens (face view), reduced one half in diameter.

In 1877, a year after the discoveries by Dr. Abbott in New Jersey, some rude quartz implements were discovered by Professor N. H. Winchell in the glacial terraces of the upper Mississippi, in the vicinity of Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn. This locality was afterwards more fullyexplored by Miss Franc E. Babbitt, who succeeded in finding so large a number of the implements as to set at rest all question concerning their human origin. According to Mr. Warren Upham, the glacial flood-plain of the Mississippi is here about three miles wide, with an elevation of from twenty-five to thirty feet above the river. It is in a stream near the bottom of this glacial terrace that the most of Miss Babbitt’s discoveries were made, and Mr.Upham has pretty clearly shown that the gravel of the terrace overlying them was mostly deposited while the ice-front was still lingering about sixty miles farther north, in the vicinity of Itasca Lake.[CU]

[CU]For a general map, seep. 66; alsop. 225.

Fig. 72.—Edge view of the preceding.

Fig. 73.—Section across the Mississippi Valley at Little Falls, Minnesota, showing the stratum in which chipped quartz fragments were found by Miss F. E. Babbitt, as described in the text (Upham).

Up to this time the above are all the instances in which the relics of man are directly and indubitably connected with deposits of this particular period east of the Rocky Mountains. Probably it is incorrect to speak of these as preglacial, for the portion of the period at which the deposits incorporating human relics were made is well on towards the close of the great Ice age, since these terraces were, in some cases, and may have been in all cases, deposited after the ice-front had withdrawn nearly, if not quite, to the water-shed of the St Lawrence basin. It may be difficult to demonstrate this with reference to the gravel deposits at Trenton, Madisonville, and Medora, but it is evident at a glance in the case of Newcomerstown and Little Falls.

That the implement-bearing gravel of Trenton, N. J., belongs to the later stages of the Glacial period is evident from its relation to what Professor H. Carvill Lewis called “the Philadelphia red gravel and brick-clay,” but which, from its large development in the District of Columbia at Washington, is called by Mr. McGee the “Columbia deposit.” The city of Philadelphia is built upon this formation in the Delaware Valley, and the brick for its houses is obtained from it; the cellar of each house ordinarily furnishing clay enough for its brick walls. This clay isof course a deposit in comparatively still water, which would imply deposition during a period of land subsidence. But that it was ice-laden water which flooded the banks is shown by the frequent occurrence of large blocks of stone in the deposits, such as could have been transported only in connection with floating ice. The boulders in the Columbia formation clearly belong to the individual river valleys in which they are found, and doubtless are to be connected with the flooded condition of those valleys when, by means of a northerly subsidence, the gradient of the streams was considerably less than now.

Fig. 74.—Quartz implement, found by Miss F. E. Babbitt, 1878, at Little Falls, Minnesota, in modified drift, fifteen feet below surface:a, face view;b, profile view. The black represented on the cut is the matrix of the quartz vein (No. 31,323) (Putnam).

There is some difference of opinion in respect to the extent of this subsidence, and, indeed, respecting the height attained by the Philadelphia brick-clay, or McGee’s Columbia deposit. Professor Lewis (whose residence was at Philadelphia, and who had devoted much time to field observations) insisted that the deposit could not be found higher than from 180 to 200 feet above the immediate flood-plain of the river valleys where they occur. But, without entering upon this disputed question, it is sufficient to consider the bearing of the facts that are accepted by all—namely, that towards the close of the Glacial period there was a marked subsidence of the land on the eastern coast of North America, increasing towards the north.

Fully to comprehend the situation, we need to bring before the mind some of the indirect effects of the Glacial period in this region. The most important of these was the necessary projection of subglacial conditions over a considerable belt of territory to the south of that actually reached by glacial ice; so that, while there are no clear indications of the existence of local glaciers in the Appalachian Mountains south of the central part of Pennsylvania, there are many indications of increased snow-fall upon the mountains, connected with prolonged winters and with a great increase of spring floods and ice-gorges upon the annual breaking up of winter.

These facts have been stated in detail by Mr. McGee,[CV]from whose report it appears that, on the Potomac atWashington, the surface of the Columbia deposit is 150 feet above tide, and that the deposit itself contains many boulders, some of which are as much as two or three feet in diameter. These are mingled with the gravel in such a way as to show that they must have been brought down by floating ice from the head-waters of the Potomac when the winters were much more severe than now. That this deposit is properly the work of the river is shown by the entire absence of marine shells.

[CV]Seventh Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey for 1885 and 1886, pp. 537-646.

According to Mr. McGee, also, there is a gradual decrease in the height of these delta terraces of the Columbia period as they recede from the glacial boundary—that at the mouth of the Susquehanna being 245 feet, that of the Potomac 140 feet, that on the Rappahannock 125, that on the James 100, and that on the Roanoke 75; while the size of the transported boulders along the streams also gradually diminishes in the same order. During the Columbia period the Susquehanna River transported boulders fifty times the size now transported, while the Potomac transported them only up to twenty times, the Rappahannock only ten times, the James only five, and the Roanoke only two or three times the size of those now transported. This progressive diminution, both in the extent of the deposit and in the coarseness of the material deposited by these rivers at about the time of the maximum portion of the Glacial period, is what would naturally be expected under the conditions supposed to exist in connection with the great Ice age, and is an important confirmation of the glacial theory.

That the period of subsidence and more intense glacial conditions during which the Columbia deposits took place, preceded, by a long interval, the deposition of the gravel terraces at Trenton, N. J., and the analogous deposits in the Mississippi Valley where palæolithic implements have been found, is evident enough. The Trenton gravel was deposited in a recess in the Columbia deposit which hadbeen previously worn out by the stream. Indeed, in every place where opportunity offers for direct observation the Trenton gravel is seen to be distinctly subsequent to the other. It was notburied bythe Philadelphia red gravel and brick-clay, but to a limited degree overlies andburiesit.

The data for measuring the absolute length of time between these two stages of the Glacial period are very indefinite. Mr. McGee, however, supposes that since the Columbia period a sufficient time has elapsed for the falls of the Susquehanna to recede more than twenty miles and for those of the Potomac eighteen miles, and this through a rock which is exceedingly obdurate. But, in channels opening, as these do, freely outward, it is difficult to tell in what epochs the erosion has been principally performed, since there are no buried channels, as in the glaciated area, enabling us to determine whether or not much of the eroding work of the river may have been accomplished in preglacial times.

The lapse of time which, upon the least calculation, separates the Columbia epoch from the Trenton, gives unusual importance to any discovery of palæolithic implements which may be made in the earlier deposits. We are bound, therefore, to consider with special caution the reported discovery of an implement in these deposits at Claymont, Delaware. The discovery was made by Dr. Hilborne T. Cresson, on July 13, 1887, during the progress of an extensive excavation in constructing the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, nineteen miles south of Philadelphia. The implement was from eight to nine feet below the surface. As there is so much chance for error of judgment respecting the undisturbed condition of the strata, and as there was so little opportunity for Dr. Cresson to verify his conclusion, we may well wait for the cumulative support of other discoveries before building a theory upon it; still, it will be profitable to consider the situation.

Fig. 75.—Argillite implement, found by H. T. Cresson, 1887, in Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut, one mile from Claymont, Delaware, in Columbia gravel, eight to nine feet below the overlying clay bed:a, face view;b, side view (No. 45,726) (Putnam).

Both Mr. McGee and myself have visited the locality with Dr. Cresson, and there can be no doubt that the implement occurred underneath the Columbia gravel. The line of demarcation is here very sharp between that gravel and the decomposed strata of underlying gneiss rock, which appears in our illustration as a light band in the middle of the section exposed. Some large boulders which could have been moved only in connection with floating ice are found in the overlying deposit near by. This excavation is about one mile and a half west of the Delaware River, and about 150 feet above it, being nearly at the uppermost limit of the Columbia deposit in that vicinity.

Fig. 76.—General section of Baltimore and Ohio cut, near Claymont, Delaware, where Mr. Cresson found palæolithic implements figured in the text (from photograph by Cresson).

The age of these deposits in which implements have been found at Claymont and at Trenton will be referred to again when we come to the specific discussion of the date of the Glacial period. It is sufficient here to bring before our minds clearly, first, the fact that this at Claymont is connected with the river floods accompanying the ice at its time of maximum extension, and when there was a gradually increasing or differential depression of the country to an unknown extent to the northward.

Two radically different theories are presented to account for the deposits variously known as the Columbia gravel and the Philadelphia brick-clay. Mr. McGee, in the monograph above referred to, supposes them to have been deposited during a period of a general subsidence of the coast-line; so that they took place at about tide-level. Mr. Upham, on the other hand, supposes them to have been deposited during the period of general elevation to whose influence he mainly attributes the Glacial period itself. In his view much of the shallow sea-bottom adjoining the present shore off from Delaware and Chesapeake Bays was then a land-surface, and the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna Rivers, coming down from the still higher elevations of the north, flowed through extensive plains so related to the northern areas of elevation that deposition was occurring in their valleys, owing in part to the flooded condition of the streams, in part to the differential elevation, and in part to the superabundance of silt and otherdébrisfurnished by the melting ice-sheet in the head-waters of these streams.

The deposits of Trenton gravel occurred much later, at a time when the ice had melted far back towards the head-waters of the Delaware, and after the land had nearly resumed its present relations of level, if indeedit had not risen northward to a still greater relative height.

As would be expected from the climatic conditions accompanying the Glacial epoch, man’s companions in the animal world were very different during the period when the high-level river gravels of America were forming from those with which he is now associated. From the remains actually discovered, either in these gravels or in close proximity to them, we infer that, while the mastodon was the most frequent of the extinct quadrupeds with which man then had to contend in that region, he must have been familiar also with the walrus, the Greenland reindeer, the caribou, the bison, the moose, and the musk ox.

In the Glacial Terraces of Europe.

The existence of glacial man in Europe was first determined in connection with the high-level river gravels already described in the valley of the Somme, situated in Picardy in the northern part of France. Here in 1841 Boucher de Perthes began to discover rudely fashioned stone implements in undisturbed strata of the gravel terraces, whose connection with the Glacial period we have already made clear. But for nearly twenty years his discoveries were ignored by scientific men, although he made persistent efforts to get the facts before them, and published a full account of them with illustrations as early as 1847. Some suggested fraud on the part of the workmen; others without examination declared that the gravel must have been disturbed; while others, still, denied altogether the artificial character of the implements.

Fig. 77.—Section across valley of the Somme: 1, peat, twenty to thirty feet thick, resting on gravel,a; 2, lower-level gravels, with elephant-bones and flint implements, covered with river-loam twenty to forty feet thick; 3, upper-level gravels, with similar fossils covered with loam, in all, thirty feet thick; 4, upland-loam, five to six feet thick; 5, Eocene-Tertiary.

At length, Dr. Regillout, an eminent physician residing at Amiens, about forty miles higher up the Somme than Abbeville, visited Boucher de Perthes, and, upon seeing the similarity between the gravel terraces at Abbeville and Amiens, returned home to look for similar implements in the high-level gravel-pits at St. Acheul, a suburb of Amiens. Almost immediately he discovered flint implements there of the same pattern with those at Abbeville, and in undisturbed strata of the gravel terrace, where it rested on the original chalk formation, at a height of 90 feet above the river. In the course of four years, Dr. Regillout found several hundred of these implements, and in 1854 published an illustrated report upon the discoveries.

Still the scientific world remained incredulous until the years 1858 and 1859, when Dr. Falconer, Mr. Prestwich, Mr. John Evans, Mr. Flower, Sir Charles Lyell, of England, and MM. Pouchet and Gaudry, of France, visited Abbeville and Amiens, and succeeded in making similar discoveries for themselves. Additional discoveries at St. Acheul have continued up to the present time whenever excavations have gone on at the gravel-pits. Mr. Prestwich estimates that there is an implement to every cubic metre of gravel, and says that he himself has brought away at different times more than two hundred specimens, and that the total number found in this one locality can hardly be under four thousand. “The gravel-beds are on the brow of a hill 97 feet above the river Somme,” and besides the relics of man contain numerous fluviatile and land shells together with “teeth and bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, and red deer, but not of the hippopotamus,”[CW]bones of the latter animal being found here only in the gravels of the lower terraces, where theyare less than thirty feet above the river, and mark a considerably later stage in the erosion of the valley. While many of the implements found at Amiens seem to have been somewhat worn and rolled, “others are as sharp and fresh as when first made.... The bedding of the gravel is extremely irregular and contorted, as though it had been pushed about by a force acting from above; and this, together with the occurrence of blocks of Tertiary sandstone of considerable size, leads to the inference that both are due to the action of river-ice. In the Seine Valley blocks of still larger size, and transported from greater distances, are found in gravels of the same age.”

[CW]Prestwich’s Geology, vol. ii, p. 481.

“Flint implements are found under similar conditions in many of the river-valleys of other parts of France, especially in the neighbourhood of Paris; of Mons in Belgium; in Spain, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, in Portugal, in Italy, and in Greece; but they have not been discovered in the drift-beds of Denmark, Sweden, or Russia, nor is there any well-authenticated instance of the occurrence of palæoliths in Germany.”[CX]

[CX]Prestwich’s Geology, vol. ii, pp. 481, 482.

When once the fact had been established that man was in northern France at the time of the deposition of the high-level gravels of the Somme and the Seine, renewed attention was directed to terraces of similar age in southern England. One of these is that upon which the city of London is built, and which, according to Lyell’s description, “extends from above Maidenhead through the metropolis to the sea, a distance from west to east of fifty miles, having a width varying from two to nine miles. Its thickness ranges commonly from five to fifteen feet.”[CY]

[CY]Antiquity of Man, pp. 154, 155.

For a long time geologists had been familiar with the fact that these terraces of the Thames contain the remains of numerous extinct animals, among which are includedthe mammoth and a species of rhinoceros. Upon directing special attention to the subject, it was found that, at various intervals, the remains of man, also, had been reported from the same deposits. As long ago as 1715 Mr. Conyers discovered a palæolithic implement, in connection with the skeleton of an elephant, at Black Mary’s, near Gray’s Inn Lane, London. This implement is preserved in the British Museum, and closely resembles typical specimens from the gravel at Amiens. Other implements of similar character have been found in the valley of the Wey near Guilford, also in the valley of the Darent, near Whitstable in Kent, and between Heme Bay and the Reculvers. While the exact position of these implements in the gravel had not been so positively noted as in the case of those found at Amiens and Abbeville, there can be little doubt that man, in company with the extinct animals mentioned, inhabited the valley of the Thames at a period when its annual floods spread over the whole terrace-plain upon which the main part of London is built.

In the valley of the Ouse, however, near Bedford, the discovery of palæolithic implements in the gravel terraces connected with the Glacial period and in intimate association with bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and other extinct animals, has been as fully established as in the valley of the Somme. The discoveries here were first made in the year 1860, by Mr. James Wyatt, in a gravel-pit at Biddenham, two miles northwest of Bedford. Two flint implements were thrown out by workmen in one day from undisturbed strata thirteen feet below the surface, and numerous other specimens have since been found in a similar situation.

The valley of the Ouse is bordered on either side by sections of a superficial blanket of glacial drift containing many transported boulders of considerable size. The valley is here about two miles wide, and ninety feet deep. The gravel deposit, however, in which the implementswere found, is only about thirty feet above the present level of the river, and hence represents the middle period of the work of the river in erosion.

Another locality in England in which similar discoveries have been made, is at Hoxne, about five miles from Diss, in Suffolk County. Like that in the valley of the Thames, however, the implements were found a long time before the significance of the discovery was recognized. Mr. John Frere reported the discovery to the Society of Antiquaries in 1801, and gave some of the implements both to the society and to the British Museum, in whose collections they are still preserved. The implements are of the true palæolithic type, and existed in such abundance, and were so free from signs of wear, that the conclusion seemed probable that a manufactory of them had been uncovered. As many as five or six to the square yard are said to have been found. Indeed, their numbers were so great that the workmen “had emptied baskets of them into the ruts of the adjoining road before becoming aware of their value.”

The deposit in which they are found is situated in the valley of Gold Brook, a tributary of the Waveney. The implements occurred about twelve feet below the surface, in fresh-water deposits, filling a hollow eroded in the glacial deposit covering that part of England. This, therefore, is clearly either of post-glacial or of late glacial age.

Still another locality in which similar palæolithic implements were found in undisturbed gravel of this same age in eastern England is Icklingham, in the valley of the Lark, where the situation is quite similar to that already described at Bedford, on the Ouse.

The last place we will stop to mention in England which was visited by palæolithic man, during or soon after the Glacial epoch, is to be found in the vicinity of Southampton. At this time the Isle of Wight was joined to themainland, and not improbably England itself to the Continent. The river, then flowing through the depression of the Solent and the Southampton Water, occupied a much higher level than now, leaving terraces along the shore at various places, in which the tools of palæolithic man have been discovered.

Though these are the best authenticated discoveries connecting man with the Glacial period in England, they are by no means the only probable cases. Almost every valley of southern England furnishes evidence of a similar but less demonstrative character.

In Cave Deposits.

The discovery of the remains of man in the high-level river-gravels deposited near the close of the Glacial period led to a revision of the evidence which had from time to time been reported connecting the remains of man with those of various extinct animals in cave deposits both in England and upon the Continent.

The British Isles.

As early as 1826, Rev. J. MacEnery, a Roman Catholic priest residing near Torquay, in Devonshire, England, had made some most remarkable discoveries in a cavern at Kent’s Hole, near his home; but, owing to his early death, and to the incredulity of that generation of scientific men, his story was neither credited nor published till 1859. About this time, a new cave having been discovered not far away, at Brixham, the best qualified members of the Royal Society (Lyell, Phillips, Lubbock, Evans, Vivian, Pengelly, Busk, Dawkins, and Sanford) were deputed to see that it was carefully explored. Mr. Pengelly, who had had twenty years’ experience in similar explorations, directed and superintended the work. Every portion of the contents was examined with minutest care. Kent’s Holeis “180 to 190 feet above the level of mean tide, and about 70 feet above the bottom of the valley immediately adjacent.”[CZ]In one chamber the excavation was about sixty feet square. The contents were arranged in the following order:

[CZ]Dawkins’s Cave-Hunting, p. 325.

Fig. 78.—Mouth of Kent’s Hole.

1. A surface of dark earth a few inches thick, containing Roman pottery, iron and bronze spear-heads, together with polished stone weapons. There were, too, in this stratum bones of cows, goats, and horses, mingled with large quantities of charcoal.

2. Below this was a stalagmite floor from one to three feet thick, formed by the dripping of lime-water from the roof.

3. Under this crust of stalagmite was a compact deposit of red earth, from two to thirteen feet thick.[DA]Flint implements of various kinds and charcoal were also found at different depths; also an awl, or piercer; a needle with the eye large enough to admit small pack-thread; and three harpoon-heads made out of bone and deer’s horn.

[DA]Dawkins’s Cave-Hunting, p. 326; Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, p. 101.

4. Flint implements were also obtained in a conglomerate (breccia) still below this. The fossil bones in this cave belonged to the same species of animals as those discovered in a cave near Wells.

The Brixham cave occurs near the small village of that name, not far from Torquay. The entrance to it is about ninety-five feet above high water. Its deposits, in descending order, are: 1. Stalagmitic floor from six to twelve or fifteen inches in thickness. 2. A thin breccia of limestone fragments cemented together by carbonate of lime. This had accumulated about the mouth, so as to fill up the entrance. 3. A layer of blackish earth about one foot in thickness 4. A deposit of from two to four feet thick, consisting of clayey loam, mingled with fragments of limestone, from small bits up to rocks weighing a ton. Bounded pebbles of other material were also occasionally met with. 5. Shingle consisting of rounded pebbles largely of foreign material.

All these strata, except the third, contained fossils of some kind, but the fourth was by far the richest repository. Among the bones found are those of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the horse, the ox, the reindeer, the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the cave-bear. Associated withthese remains a number of worked flints was found. In one place the bones of an entire leg of a cave-bear occurred in such a position as to show that they must have been bound together by the ligaments when they were buried. Immediately below these bones a flint implement was found.[DB]

[DB]See Pengelly’s Reports to the Devonshire Association, 1867.

The hyena’s den, at Wookey Hole, near Wells, in Somerset, was carefully explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins, who stood by and examined every shovelful of material as it was thrown out.

This cave alone yielded 35 specimens of palæolithic art, 467 jaws and teeth of the cave-hyena, 15 of the cave lion, 27 of the cave-bear, 11 of the grizzly bear, 11 of the brown bear, 7 of the wolf, 8 of the fox, 30 of the mammoth, 233 of the woolly rhinoceros, 401 of the horse, 16 of the wild ox, 30 of the bison, 35 of the Irish elk, and 30 of the reindeer (jaws and teeth only).

In Derbyshire numerous caves were explored by Professor Dawkins at Cress well Crags, which, in addition to flint implements and the remains of the animals occurring in the Brixham cave, yielded the bones of the machairodus, an extinct species of tiger or lion which lived during the Tertiary period.

The Victoria cave, near Settle, in west Yorkshire, is the only other one in England which we need to mention. In this there were no remains found which could be positively identified as human, but the animal remains in the lower strata of the cave deposit were so different from those in the upper bed as to indicate the great lapse of time which separated the two. This cave is 1,450 feet above the sea-level, and there were found in the upper strata of the floor, down to a depth of from two to ten feet, many remains of existing animals. Then, for a distance of twelve feet, there occurred a clay deposit, containing no organic remainswhatever, but some well-scratched boulders. Below this was a third stratum of earth mingled with limestone fragments, at the base of which were numerous remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bison, hyena, etc. One bone occurred which was by some supposed to be human, but by others to have belonged to a bear. This lower stratum is, without much doubt, preglacial, and the thickness of the deposit intervening between it and the upper fossiliferous bed is taken by some to indicate the great lapse of time separating the period of the mammoth and rhinoceros in England from the modern age. The scratched boulders in the middle stratum of laminated clay, would indicate certainly that the material found its way into the cave during the Glacial epoch, when ice filled the whole valley of the Ribble, which flows past the foot of the hill, and whose bed is 900 feet below the mouth of the cave.

In North Wales the Vale of Clwyd contains numerous caves which were occupied by hyenas in preglacial times and with their bones are associated those of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the cave-lion, the cave-bear, and various other animals. Flint implements also were found in the cave at Cae Gwyn, near the village of Tremeirchon, on the eastern side of the valley, opposite Cefn, and about four miles distant. We have already given an illustration of the Cefn cave (seepage 148). It will be observed that this valley of the Clwyd opens to the north, and has a pretty rapid descent to the sea from the Welsh mountains, and was in position to be obstructed by the Irish Sea glacier, so as to have been occupied at times by one of the characteristic marginal lakes of the Glacial period. It is evident also that the northern ice prevailed over the Welsh ice for a considerable portion of the lower part of the valley; for northern drift is the superficial deposit upon the hills on the sides of the valley up to a height of over 500 feet. From the investigations of Mr.C. E. De Rance, F. G. S.,[DC]it is equally clear also that the northern drift, which until lately sealed up the entrance of the cave, was subsequent to its occupation by man, and this was the opinion formed by Sir Archibald Geikie, Director General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, as the result of special investigations which he made of the matter.[DD]

[DC]Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society for 1888, pp. 1-20.

[DD]See De Ranee, as above, p. 17; and article by H. Hicks, in Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, vol. xlii, p. 3; Geological Magazine, May, 1885, p. 510.

From the caves in the Vale of Clwyd as many as 400 teeth of rhinoceros, 500 of horse, 180 of hyena, and 15 of mammoth have been taken. A section of the cave deposits in the cave at Cae Gwyn is as follows:

“Below the soil for about eight feet a tolerably stiff boulder-clay, containing many ice-scratched boulders and narrow bands and pockets of sand. Below this about seven feet of gravel and sand, with here and there bands of red clay, having also many ice-scratched boulders. The next deposit was a laminated brown clay, and under this was found the bone-earth, a brown, sandy clay with small pebbles and with angular fragments of limestone, stalagmites, and stalactites. During the excavations it became clear that the bones had been greatly disturbed by water action; that the stalagmite floor, in parts more than a foot in thickness, and massive stalactites, had also been broken and thrown about in all positions; and that these had been covered afterwards by clays and sand containing foreign pebbles. This seemed to prove that the caverns, now 400 feet above ordnance datum, must have been submerged subsequently to their occupation by the animals and by man. In Dr. Hicks’s opinion, the contents of the cavern must have been disturbed by marine action during the great submergence in mid-glacial times, and afterwardscovered by marine sands and by an upper boulder-clay, identical in character with that found at many points in the Vale of Clwyd. The paleontological evidence suggests that the deposits in question are not preglacial, but may be equivalent to the Pleistocene deposits of our river-valleys.”[DE]

[DE]H. B. Woodward’s Geology of England and Wales, pp. 543, 544

If the views of Professor Lewis and Mr. Kendall are correct concerning the unity of the Glacial period in England, the shelly and sandy deposits connected with these Clwydian caves at an elevation of 400 feet or more would be explained in connection with the marginal lakes which must have occupied the valley during both the advance and the retreat of the ice-front; the shells having been carried up from the sea-bottom by the ice-movement, after the manner supposed in the case of those at Macclesfield and Moel Tryfaen. If, therefore, the statements concerning the discovery of flint implements in this Cae Gwyn cave can be relied upon, this is the most direct evidence yet obtained in Europe of man’s occupation of the island during the continuance of the Glacial period.

In all these caves it is to be noted that there is a sharp line of demarcation between the strata containing palæolithic implements and those containing only the remains of modern animals. Palæolithic implements are confined to the lower strata, which in some of the caves are separated from the upper by a continuous bed of stalagmite, to which reference will be made when discussing the chronology of the Glacial period. The remains of extinct animals also are confined to the lower beds.

The caves which we have been considering in England are all in limestone strata, and have been formed by streams of water which have enlarged some natural fissures both by mechanical action in wearing away the rocks, and by chemical action in dissolving them.Through the lowering of the main line of drainage, caverns with a dry floor are at length left, offering shelter and protection both to man and beast. Oftentimes, but not always, some idea of the age of these caverns may be obtained by observing the depth to which the main channel of drainage to which they were tributary has been lowered since their formation. But to this subject also we will return when we come specifically to discuss the chronological question.

The Continent.

Systematic explorations in the caves of Belgium were begun in 1833 by Dr. Schmerling, in the valley of the Meuse, near his residence in Liége. The Meuse is here bordered by limestone precipices 200 or more feet in height. Opening out from these rocky walls are the entrances to the numerous caverns which have rendered the region so famous. To get access to the most important of these, Dr. Schmerling had to let himself down over a precipice by a rope tied to a tree, and then to creep along on all-fours through intricate channels to reach the larger chambers which it was his object to explore. In the cave at Engis, on the left bank of the Meuse, about eight miles above Liége, he found a human skull deeply buried in breccia in company with many bones of the extinct animals previously stated to have been associated with man during the Glacial period. This so-called “Engis skull” was by no means apelike in its character, but closely resembled that of the average Caucasian man. But this established the association upon the Continent of man with some of the extinct animals of the Glacial period.

Fig. 79.—Engis skull, reduced (after Lyell.)

Fig. 80.—Comparison of forms of skulls:a, European;b, the Neanderthal man; c, a chimpanzee (after Lyell).

The vicinity of Liége has also furnished us another cavern whose contents are of the highest importance, ranking indeed as perhaps the most significant single discovery yet made. The cave referred to is on the property of the Count of Beauffort, in the commune of Spy, in the province of Namur in Belgium. For the facts relating to it we are indebted to Messrs: Lohest and Fraipont, the former Professor of Geology and the latter of Anatomy in the University of Liége. The exploration of the cave was made in 1886, and the full report with illustrations published in the following year in Archives de Biologie.[DF]The significance of this discovery is enhanced by the light it sheds upon and the confirmation it brings to the famous Neanderthal skull and others of similar character, which for a long time had been subjects of vigorous discussion. Before describing it, therefore, we will give a brief account of the previous discoveries.

[DF]See pp. 587, 757.

The famous Neanderthal skull was brought to light in 1857 by workmen in a limestone-quarry, near Düsseldorf, in the valley of the Neander, a small tributary to the Rhine. By these workmen a cavern was opened upon the southern side of the winding ravine, about sixty feet above the stream and one hundred feet below the top of the cliff. The skull attracted much attention from its supposed possession of many apelike characteristics; indeed, it was represented by some to be a real intermediate link between man and the anthropoid apes. The accompanying cut enables one to compare the outline of the Neanderthal skull with that of a chimpanzee on the one hand and of the highly developed European on the other. The apelike peculiarities of this skull appear in its vertical depression,in the enormous thickness of the bony ridges just above the eyes, and in the gradual slope of the back part of the head, together with some other characteristics which can only be described in technical language; so that it was pronounced by the highest authorities the most apelike of human crania which had yet been discovered. Unfortunately, the jaw was not found. The capacity of the skull, however, was seventy-five cubic inches, which is far above that of the highest of the apes, being indeed equal to the average capacity of Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.[DG]Huxley well remarks that “so large a mass of brain as this would alone suggest that the pithecoid tendencies indicated by this skull did not extend deep into the organization.”

[DG]Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature, p. 181.

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