Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/662

642 first part of a work which the author hopes to be able to complete under the patronage of his government.

Nine caverns are now known to exist about Mentone; these are noticed by our author in inverse sequence to their numbers (i. e., the last, first, and so on). In the fourth (Caverne du Cavillon, or Barma du Cavillon) the skeleton was discovered, and in it the most complete explorations have been prosecuted; the entrance was blocked up till the commencement of this century; it is about 7 metres (23 feet) wide at the entrance, nearly 19 (62 feet) deep, and 15 or 16 (say 50 feet) high. The soil is composed in great part of ashes, the remains of a former cooking-place. For more than three months M. Rivière pushed his investigations, unearthing the remains of animals, shells, and bone or stone instruments, and, at last (on the 26th of March, 1872), was rewarded by uncovering a human foot, at a depth of between 6 and 7 metres (20 feet) below the original floor of the cave. Continuing uninterruptedly and with the greatest care, for eight days, his excavations, he finally exhumed almost the entire skeleton. The skeleton was recumbent on its left side, lengthwise in the cave, near the right wall, and about seven metres from the entrance; its attitude was that of repose—that of a man whom sudden and painless death might have surprised in sleep; so says M. Rivière.

The skeleton, when studied and compared with those of recent types of mankind, exhibited (so far as we can learn from the memoir) no differences other than of such kind as can be demonstrated in any large collection of skeletons of the various existing races; the height was above the average (and it is a pity that it was not compared with one that approximated it more in size than the one used in comparison); the arms, legs and feet furnished no unusual proportions, either in ratio to the body, or their own constituents—that is, forearm to humerus, lower leg to thigh etc.; the vertebral column and ribs were normal; the skull was equally normal, save as to the orbits, whose transverse diameter was somewhat greater, and vertical less than usual; in short, as far as we can asertain from our author, had the skeleton been found in an ordinary graveyard, no suspicion would have been entertained of its great antiquity.

But, in the superincumbent and surrounding earth (ashes) were found flint and bone instruments, and the remains of various animals which no longer exist in Europe, or are altogether extinct: among the latter (assuming the correctness of their determination) were remains of a panther (Felis antiqua, Gerv.), the tichorhine rhinoceros, a marmot (Arctomys primigenia, Gerv.), a deer (Cervus Corsicanus, Gerv.?), and a goat (Capra primigenia, Gerv). The tichorhine rhinoceros, as is well known, although now extinct, has been found embalmed skin and all—in the ice of Siberia, and must have survived long after man had originated. The other mammals cited require further study before their specific claims can be regarded as fully established. As to those