But, although we may be unable to estimate the minimum of time required for the changes in physical geography above alluded to, we cannot fail to perceive that the duration of the period must have been very protracted, and that other ages of comparative inaction may have followed, separating the Pleistocene from the historical periods, and constituting an interval no less indefinite in its duration.
CHAPTER 5. — PLEISTOCENE PERIOD—FOSSIL HUMAN SKULLS OF THE NEANDERTHAL
AND ENGIS CAVES.
Human Skeleton found in Cave near Dusseldorf.
Its geological Position and probable Age.
Its abnormal and ape-like Characters.
Fossil Human Skull of the Engis Cave near Liege.
Professor Huxley's Description of these Skulls.
Comparison of each, with extreme Varieties of the native
Australian Race.
Range of Capacity in the Human and Simian Brains.
Skull from Borreby in Denmark.
Conclusions of Professor Huxley.
Bearing of the peculiar Characters of the Neanderthal Skull
on the Hypothesis of Transmutation.
FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON OF THE NEANDERTHAL CAVE NEAR DUSSELDORF.
Before I speak more particularly of the opinions which anatomists have expressed respecting the osteological characters of the human skull from Engis, near Liege, mentioned in the last chapter and described by Dr. Schmerling, it will be desirable to say something of the geological position of another skull, or rather skeleton, which, on account of its peculiar conformation, has excited no small sensation in the last few years. I allude to the skull found in 1857 in a cave situated in that part of the valley of the Dussel, near Dusseldorf, which is called the Neanderthal. The spot is a deep and narrow ravine about 70 English miles north-east of the region of the Liege caverns treated of in the last chapter, and close to the village and railway station of Hochdal between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. The cave occurs in the precipitous southern or left side of the winding ravine, about sixty feet above the stream, and a hundred feet below the top of the cliff. The accompanying section (Figure 1.) will give the reader an idea of its position.
When Dr. Fuhlrott of Elberfeld first examined the cave, he found it to be high enough to allow a man to enter. The width was 7 or 8 feet, and the length or depth 15. I visited the spot in 1860, in company with Dr. Fuhlrott, who had the kindness to come expressly from Elberfeld to be my guide, and who brought with him the original fossil skull, and a cast of the same, which he presented to me. In the interval of three years, between 1857 and 1860, the ledge of rock, f, on which the cave opened, and which was originally 20 feet wide, had been almost entirely quarried away, and, at the rate at which the work of dilapidation was proceeding, its complete destruction seemed near at hand.
(FIGURE 1. SECTION OF THE NEANDERTHAL CAVE NEAR DUSSELDORF.
a. Cavern 60 feet above the Dussel, and 100 feet below the
surface of the country at c.
b. Loam covering the floor of the cave near the bottom of which
the human skeleton was found.
b, c. Rent connecting the cave with the upper surface of the
country.
d. Superficial sandy loam.
e. Devonian limestone.
f. Terrace, or ledge of rock.)
In the limestone are many fissures, one of which, still partially filled with mud and stones, is represented in the section at a c as continuous from the cave to the upper surface of the country. Through this passage the loam, and possibly the human body to which the bones belonged, may have been washed into the cave below. The loam, which covered the uneven bottom of the cave, was sparingly mixed with rounded fragments of chert, and was very similar in composition to that covering the general surface of that region.
There was no crust of stalagmite overlying the mud in which the human skeleton was found, and no bones of other animals in the mud with the skeleton; but just before our visit in 1860 the tusk of a bear had been met with in some mud in a lateral embranchment of the cave, in a situation precisely similar to b, Figure 1, and on a level corresponding with that of the human skeleton. This tusk, shown us by the proprietor of the cave, was 2 1/2 inches long and quite perfect; but whether it was referable to a recent or extinct species of bear, I could not determine.
From a printed letter of Dr. Fuhlrott we learn that on removing the loam, which was five feet thick, from the cave, the human skull was first noticed near the entrance, and, further in, the other bones lying in the same horizontal plane. It is supposed that the skeleton was complete, but the workmen, ignorant of its value, scattered and lost most of the bones, preserving only the larger ones.*
(* Fuhlrott, Letter to Professor Schaaffhausen, cited
"Natural History Review" Number 2 page 156. See also
"Naturhistorischer Verein" Bonn 1859.)
The cranium, which Dr. Fuhlrott showed me, was covered both on its outer and inner surface, and especially on the latter, with a profusion of dendritical crystallisations, and some other bones of the skeleton were ornamented in the same way. These markings, as Dr. Hermann von Meyer observes, afford no sure criterion of antiquity, for they have been observed on Roman bones. Nevertheless, they are more common in bones that have been long embedded in the earth. The skull and bones, moreover, of the Neanderthal skeleton had lost so much of their animal matter as to adhere strongly to the tongue, agreeing in this respect with the ordinary condition of fossil remains of the Pleistocene period. On the whole, I think it probable that this fossil may be of about the same age as those found by Schmerling in the Liege caverns; but, as no other animal remains were found with it, there is no proof that it may not be newer. Its position lends no countenance whatever to the supposition of its being more ancient.
When the skull and other parts of the skeleton were first exhibited at a German scientific meeting at Bonn, in 1857, some doubts were expressed by several naturalists, whether it was truly human. Professor Schaaffhausen, who, with the other experienced zoologists, did not share these doubts, observed that the cranium, which included the frontal bone, both parietals, part of the squamous, and the upper third of the occipital, was of unusual size and thickness, the forehead narrow and very low, and the projection of the supra-orbital ridges enormously great. He also stated that the absolute and relative length of the thigh bone, humerus, radius, and ulna, agreed well with the dimensions of a European individual of like stature at the present day; but that the thickness of the bones was very extraordinary, and the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles were developed in an unusual degree. Some of the ribs, also, were of a singularly rounded shape and abrupt curvature, which was supposed to indicate great power in the thoracic muscles.*
(* Professor Schaaffhausen's "Memoir" translated "Natural
History Review" April 1861.)
In the same memoir, the