method of judging of the age of hones is, by the proportions of animal
and mineral matters which they retain. Where animal matter
is present, the bone is hard without being brittle, and does not adhere
to the tongue; when nothing but earthy matter remains, the bone is
both brittle and adhesive. If we wish' to be more particular in our
examination, we treat the bone in question with dilute muriatic acid:
the fossil bone, dissolving with effervescence, is reduced to a spongy
flocculent mass: whereas the recent bone undergoes a quiet digestion,
and after the removal of all the earthy matter, the gelatine still retains
the form of the entire bone in a fibrous, flexible, elastic, and translucent
state. If both solutions be treated with -sulphuric acid, we
obtain the same insoluble sulphate of lime from each.
Col. Hamilton Smith mentions several instances, occurring in England,
where human bones were found kneaded up in the same
osseous breccia, or calcareous paste, with those of extinct animals,
wherein the most rigid chemical examination could detect no difference
between them. In 1833, the Rev. MrtM’Enery collected, from the
caves of Torquay, human bones and flint knives amongst a great
variety of extinct genera — all from under a crust of stalagmite, reposing
upon which was the head of a wolf. Caves have been opened
at Oreston, near Plymouth, in the Plymouth Hoe, and at Yealm
Bridge, in all of which human bones were found, mixed with fossil
animal remains. Mr. Bellamy subjected a piece of human bone, from
the cave at Yealm Bridge, to treatment by muriatic aeid, ascertaining
that its animal matter had almost entirely disappeared; while the
metatarsal bone of a hyena, from the same cave; still retained such
an abundance of animal matter that, after separation of the earthy
parts, this bone preserved its complete form, was quite translucent,
and had all the appearance of a recent specimen. Pieces of human
bone, from a sub-Appenine cavern in Tuscany, (probably not less
than twenty-five or thirty centuries old, and which had all the appearance
of being completely fossilized and even converted into chalk,)
when subjected to the searching powers of such muriatic-acid test,
revealed their recent origin. And human bones from the Brixham
cavern, in England, were in like manner pronounced recent, though
it was evident that they had been gnawed by hyenas or other beasts
of prey. Hot far from the cave whence these wereffaken, the thoroughly
fossilized head of a deer was picked up. This test was also fairly tried
in the case (to be presently cited) of sundry human fossils found in the
Jura. MM. Ballard and de Serres compared them with some bones
taken from a Gaulish sarcophagus, supposed to have been buried for
1400 years, bat the fossil bones proved to be much the more ancient.
It may be granted, that Dr. Buckland was justified in concluding
from the instances which came under his observation, that whenever
human bones were discovered mixed with those of animals, they
must have been introduced at a later period ; but even Cardinal Wiseman
admits that there are cases of an entirely different character.*
The cave of Durfort, in the Jura, has been examined and described
by MM. Eirmas and Marcel de Serres. It is situated in^a calcareous
mountain, about 300 feet above the level of the sea, and is entered
by a perpendicular shaft, twenty feet deep. You enter the cavern by
a narrow passage from this shaft, and there find human bones in a
true fossil state, and completely incorporated in a calcareous matfix.
A still more accurate examination, attended with the same results,
was made, by M. de Serres, of certain bones found in tertiary limestone
at Pondres, in the department of the Hérault. Hère M. de
Cristolles discovered human bones and pottery, mixed with the
remains of the rhinoceros, bear, hyena, and many other animals.
They were imbedded in mud and fragments of the limestone rock of
the neighborhood; this accumulation, in some places, being thirteen
feet thick. These human fossils were proved, on a careful examination,
to have'parted with their animal matter as completely as
those bones of hyenas which accompanied them ; and they furthermore
came out triumphantly from a comparison with the osseous
relics of the long-buried Gaul, as just related.
A fossil human skeleton is preserved .in the Museum at Quebec,
which was dus: out of the solid Schist-rock on which O. the citadel stands I
and two more skeletons from Guadaloupe are deposited, one in the
British Museum, and the other in the Royal Cabinet at Paris. The
skeleton in the British Museum is headless ; but its cranium is supposed
to be recovered in the one found in Guadaloupe by M. L ’Her-
minier, and carried by him to Charleston, South Carolina. Dr.
Moultrie, who has described this very interesting relic, says that it
possesses all the characteristics which mark the American race in
general, f The rock in which these skeletons were found is described
as being harder, under the chisel, than the finest statuary marble.
Dr. Schmerling has examined a large number of localities in Erance
and Liege, particularly the “ caverne d’Engihoul;” where bones of
man occurred, together with those of animals of extinct species : the
human fossils being found, in all respects, under the same circumstances
of age and position as the animal remains. J Hear these relics,
works of art were sometimes disclosed ; such as fragments of ancient
urns, and vases of clay, teeth of dogs and foxes pierced with holes
* Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, by Nicholas Wise-
nnu, D. D. London, 1849.
| Morton : Physical Type of American Indians. J Recherches, I. pp. 59-66.