Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/50

36 sand and silt, the workmen exhumed a human skull and a quantity of bones, some undoubtedly human, and others belonging to the lower animals. The human skull according to its phrenological development, seems to indicate a low intellectual capacity, the forehead being low, and the circumference under the average standard. There is also a fragment of a skull which seems to have belonged to a tolerably large animal, as it measures three and a quarter inches from the medial line to the outside beside the ear, giving a breadth of six and a half inches for the whole skull; then if the integuments, hair, etc. be added, we should have a physiognomy little short of nine inches wide, and this creature may have been that of one of the principal tenants of the cave, and which probably devoured the others. Inter-mixed with the remains are very small pieces of bone, etc., partially cemented together by calcareous matter, and occurring in patches at different places; these have the appearance of coprolites. The bones are nearly all fragmentary, and much broken; the fractures being of an ancient date, thereby showing that the remains had been subject to violence and fracture before they were imbedded in their calcareous tomb.

How long these remains have lain in the cave? by what means they have been carried and entombed there? whether the animal-remains belong to existing or to extinct species? and how the fractured bones are to be accounted for? are all very interesting palæontological problems.

The cave has in all probability been occasionally inhabited by wolves, foxes, etc., which would sally forth, seize their prey, and return to devour it, leaving the bones to be covered over by the stalagmite as we find them; the coprolites before mentioned seem to point to this conclusion. There seems to be not so much mystery about the animal bones being found there; but the case is quite different as regards the human. There is always something strange and startling in such occurrences, when human remains are found otherwise than reposing in the silent and hallowed precincts of a regular burying-place.

During the interment of these relics of some of the perhaps earliest members of our race, the rippling of running water on the cavern floor, the monotonous drippings from the roof, the growling perhaps of wolves, or the barking of foxes, and the bellowing of the wind through the gloomy chambers of the cavern, would form the only requiem.