Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/118

100 Elephas primigenius, or mammoth ; Rhinoceros tichorhinus; Ursus spelæus; Hyæna spelæa; Felis spelæa, or the cave-lion; Cervus Tarandus, or the reindeer; a species of horse, ox, and several rodents, and others not yet determined. No human bones were obtained anywhere during these excavations, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the bone-earth; and one of the most perfect lay at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface, and was covered with bone-earth of that thickness. From a similar position was taken one of those siliceous nuclei, or cores, from which flint flakes had been struck off on every side. Neglecting the less perfect specimens, some of which were met with even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen knives, recognised as artificially formed by the most experienced antiquaries, were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from near the bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the associated mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of antiquity, as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, similar tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date to the era of the introduction of bronze. But the anteriority of those at Brixham to the extinct animals is demonstrated not only by the occurrence at one point in overlying stalagmite of the bone of a cave-bear, but also by the discovery at the same level in the bone-earth, and in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool, of the entire left hind-leg of a cave-bear. This specimen, which was shown me by Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, was exhumed from the earthy deposit in the reindeer gallery, near its junction with the flint-knife gallery, at the distance of about sixty-five feet from the main entrance. The mass of earth containing it was removed entire, and the matrix cleared away carefully by Dr. Falconer in the presence of Mr. Pengelly. Every bone was in its natural place, the femur, tibia, fibula, ankle-bone, or astragalus, all in juxta-position. Even the patella or