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94 been washed into the caverns by floods an idea which unfortunately prevented him from taking due notice of the relative position of the associated objects.

Like most other scientists of the day, Sir Charles Lyell, who visited Schmerling in 1833, was then sceptical about the value of the latter' s discoveries ; but it is interesting to note that in his Antiquity of Man (pp. 67-9) he makes a long apology to the Belgian investigator for not giving the weight to his opinions which he then considered they were entitled to. The apology concludes as follows :— "When these circumstances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder, not only that a passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinise the evidence, but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighbouring professors of the university of Liége came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman."

The Lahr Skeleton.

In 1823 M. Ami Boué, an experienced geologist, extracted with his own hands portions of a human skeleton from an undisturbed loess at Lahr, on the right bank of the Rhine Valley, and nearly opposite to Strasburg. Boué attributed great antiquity to these bones, partly because they were so low down in the loess, and party because in loess of the same age remains of extinct mammalia had been detected. Sir Charles Lyell, when writing his Antiquity of Man, became interested in M. Boué's discovery, and corresponded with him as to the precise facts of the case, which he thus describes :—