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Show 508 Tlll~ ~fONOGENLS'rS AND also ex hum, d from the diluvial drift, rude flint instruments are no lonO'cr criteria for depressing tho ago of bones found with them. Primordial man was everywhere a huntct·: his tooth and. stoma ·It arc those of an omnivorous genus: his instincts still continuo to be essentially bellicose. . . 'l'his is confirmed whilst I am ·writing, by the followmg mtcrcsting account of proco~dings among. men of science in Engln.nd-which is inserted as received: "A paper ha8 also boon road, in this section, by Mr. Vivian, of Torquay, on "tho earliest traces of human remains in Kent's avc_n_1, especially fl.int-kniv s and arrow-heads, beneath. the .st~ln.gm~t1c :floor." Tho peculiar interest of this subject conststcd m1ts b 1ng tho link between gcolocry and antiquities; and tho certainty afiordcd, by tho condition in which tho remains arc found, of tltcit• rol~tivo aO'c -tho successive deposits being scaled up in sit·u by tho dropp1ngs obf c' arbonate of lime, which assume the form of stalagm1. to. 'I'] 10 sources from which tho statements in tho paper wore obtained, were principally tho original manuscript memoir of tho late Rev. J. M'En ry, F. G. S., which is d plorcd by Professor Owen, in hi!:! Fossil Mammalia, and by other writers, as 1 st to science; but which has boon recovered by Mr. Vivian, and was pt·oducod b foro the section : also tho report of tho sub-committee of the Tol'quay Natural Society, and ltis own research s. "We have not space for tho interesting statements contained in the papol', or tho extracts which wore read. from tho manuscript, beyond tho following brief summary of Mr. Vivian's conclusion8, which wore mainly in accordance with those of Mr. M'Encry. Tho cavern is situated beneath a hill, about a mile from 'l'orquay a11cl Babbccombo, extending to a circuit of about 700 yards. It was :fir8t occupied by tho bear (ursus spelreus) and extinct hyena, tho remains of which, the bones of elephants, rhinoceros, door, &c., upon which they preyed, wore str wn upon the rocky floor. By some violent and transitory convulsion, a vast amount of tho soil of tho surrounding country was injected into tho cavern, carrying with it tho bon s, and burying them in its inmost recesses. Immediately upon itl:l subsidence, the cavern appears to have been occupied by human inhabitants, whoso rude :flint instruments arc found upon the mud beneath the stalagmite. A period then succeeded, during which tho cavern was not inhabited until about half of tho floor was deposited, when a streak containing burnt wood and tho bonos of tho wild boar and badger was deposited; and again the cave was unoccupied, either by men or animals,-the remaining portion of the stalagmite bciug, both above and below, pure and unstained by soil or any foreign TJIE POLYGENJSTS. 50!) matter. Above the :floor have been found remains of Celtic, early British and Roman remains, together with those of more modem date. Among tho inscriptions is one of interest as connected with tho landing of William ITI. on the opposite side of tho bay: 'W. Hodges, of Ireland, 1G88.' "In tho discussion which followed, and in which Sir Henry Rawlinson, the Secrctal'y of tho Ethnological Society, and other!:!, took part, tho position of tho flints beneath the stalagmite seemed to be admitted, although contl'al'y to tho generally received opinion of tho most eminent geoloO'ists,-thus carrying back the :first occupation of Devon to very high antiquity, but not suclt as to be at variance with Scriptuml chronology: [!] tho deposit of stalagmite being shown to have been much more rapid at those periods when the cavern was not inhabited, by tho greater discharge of carbonic acid gas. Without attempting to affix with any certainty more than a relative date to those several points, or forming a Scriptum! interpretation upon natural phenomena" which, as Bacon remarked, too often produces merely a false religion and a fantastic philosophy, Mr. Vivian suggested that there was reason for believing that tho introduclion of tho mud was occasioned, not hy tlte comparatively t?·anquil Mosaic ])eluge, whiclt spared tl!e olive and allowed tlte adc to float witltout miraculous inte1-position, but by tho greater convulsion allud d to in the first chapter [I presume this to be a misprint, for no Jicbrai8t can find such coincidence in the Text] of Genesis, which destroyed the pro-existing races of animals-most of those in this cavern being of extinct species-and prepared the earth for man aucl his contemporaries.'' 321 Thoro is yet another rather recent rumor of certain discoveries, reported by Professor Kamat, of human skulls mingled with osseous vestiges of tho mammoth period,:ns in the Suabian Alps; but I have not been able to obtain details. Nevertheless, whilst the antiquity of man in Europe begins to be borne out ou all sides, it is to be regretted that these so-called negroid crania do not yet appear to have been scrutinized by special cranioscopists; who would probahly detect, in their prognathous confonnation, not a neg1·o typo, but that of some races of man of lower intellectual grade than occupy Europe at this clay. In the scale of progl'essioo, monkeys should, in Europe also, have boon precursors (as they wore in America) of inferior races of mankind; such as those we still encounter b ing confined within the same tropical zones now-a-days co-inhabited by tho simiadce. m London "'l'imos," Aug. 12, 1850-Drit. Assoc. Adv. Scienoc, Chrltonham, Aug. 9. B"lll Proceed in(}~ of the Gtrman Scienlljic A 380Cilltio11; held t>t 'l'Ubiogeu, 1854. ~~'II' I I II .I |