A Manual of the Antiquity of Man. J. P. Maclean
with superstitious fear and hope, and as productions of lightning and thunder. Hence for a long time they were called thunderbolts even by the learned. … As late as the year 1734 when Mahndel explained in the Academy of Paris that these stones were human implements, he was laughed at, because he had not proved that they could not have been formed in the clouds."[3]
As early as the year 1700, a human skull was dug out of the calcareous tuff of Constatt, in company with the bones of the mammoth. It is preserved in the Natural History Museum at Stuttgart.
In the year 1715, an Englishman named Kemp found in London, by the side of elephants' teeth, a stone hatchet, similar to those which have been subsequently found in great numbers in different parts of the world. This hatchet is still preserved in the British Museum.
In 1774, in the cavern of Gailenreuth, Bavaria, J. F. Esper discovered some human bones mingled with the remains of extinct animals.
In 1797, unpolished flint axes were dug out in great numbers from a brick-field near Hoxne, county of Suffolk, where they occurred at a depth of twelve feet, mingled with the bones of extinct species of animals. They were gathered up and thrown by basketsful upon the neighboring road. In the year 1801, before the Society of Antiquaries, John Frere read a paper upon them, in which he stated that they pointed to a very remote period. This communication, short as it was, contained the essence of all subsequent discoveries and speculations as to the antiquity of man. But the society regarded the subject as of no importance.
During the construction of a canal (1815–1823) in Hollerd, there was found, near Maestricht, in the loess, a human jaw in company with the bones of extinct animals. This bone is preserved in the museum at Leyden.
In 1823, Aimé Boué disinterred portions of a human skeleton from ancient undisturbed loess near Lahr, a small village nearly opposite Strasbourg. These bones were placed in the care of Cuvier, but, having been neglected, are now lost.
In the same year, Dr. Buckland, an English geologist, published his "Reliquiæ Diluvianæ," a work principally devoted to a description of the Kirkdale Cave. The author combined all the known facts which favored the coexistence of man, with the extinct animals.
In 1828, M. Tournal and M. Christol explored numerous caverns in the south of France. In the cavern of Bize, Tournal found human bones and teeth, and fragments of rude pottery, together with the bones of both living and extinct species of animals, imbedded in the same mud and breccia, cemented by stalagmite. The human bones were in the same chemical condition as those of the extinct species.
M. Christol found in the cavern of Pondres, near Nimes, some human bones in the same mud with the bones of an extinct hyena and rhinoceros.
In 1833, Dr. Schmerling explored the two bone-caverns of Engis and Enghihoul (Belgium). In the former he found the Engis skull (now in the museum of the University of Liége), at a depth of nearly five feet, under an osseous breccia. The earth also contained the teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyena, and bear, and exhibited no marks of disturbance. He also found the skull of a young person imbedded by the side of a mammoth's tooth. It was entire, but so fragile, that it fell to pieces before it was extracted. In the cave of Enghihoul he found numerous bones belonging to three human individuals, mingled with the bones of extinct animals. In these caves he noted rude flint instruments, but did not collect many of them. In the care of Chokier, he discovered a polished and jointed needle-shaped bone, with a hole pierced through it, at its base. The caves of Engis and Chokier have been annihilated, while only a part of Enghihoul remains.
Soon after these discoveries Dr. Schmerling published a work which described and represented a vast quantity of objects which had been discovered in the Belgian caverns. The scientific men were not yet prepared to receive the new discoveries, and it attracted but little attention at that time.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Dr. Schmerling for his unremitting labors. Of these labors Sir Charles Lyell has said: "To have undertaken, in 1832, with a view of testing its truth (antiquity of fossil human bones) to follow the Belgian philosopher through every stage of his observations and proofs, would have been no easy task even for one well-skilled in geology and osteology. To be let down, as Schmerling was, day after day, by a rope tied to a tree, so as to slide to the foot of the first opening of the Engis cave, where the best-preserved human skulls were found; and, after thus gaining access to the first subterranean gallery, to creep on all fours through a contracted passage leading to larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through the stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove piece by piece the underlying bone-breccia nearly as hard; to stand for hours with one's feet in the mud, and with water dripping from the roof on one's head, in order to mark the position and guard against the loss of each single bone of a skeleton; and at length, after finding leisure, strength, and courage for all these operations, to look forward, as the fruits of one's labor, to the publication of unwelcome intelligence, opposed to the prepossessions of the scientific as well as the unscientific public;—when these circumstances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder … that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighboring professors of the University of Liége came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman."[4]
In 1835, M. Joly, then professor at the Lyceum of Montpellier, found in the cave of Nabrigas (Lozére) the skull of a cave-bear, on which an arrow had left its mark. Close by, was a fragment of pottery marked by the finger of the moulder.
It was in the valley of the Somme (a river in the north of France) that M. Boucher de Perthes found those famous flint-axes of the rudest form. His explorations had been going on for a long time. He did all he could to bring these discoveries before the public. In the year 1836 he began to proclaim the high antiquity of man, in a series of communications addressed to the Société d'Emulation of Abbeville. To the same society, in the year 1838, he exhibited the flint-axes he had found, but without result. In 1839, he took these hatchets to Paris, and showed them to some of the members of the Institute. At first they gave some encouragement toward these researches; but this favorable feeling did not last long. In 1841 he began to form his collection, which has since become so justly celebrated. He engaged trained workmen to dig in the diluvial beds, and in a short time he had collected twenty specimens of flint wrought by the hand of man, though in a very rude state. In 1846, he published his first work on the subject, entitled "De l'Industrie Primitive, ou les Arts et leur Origine." In the following year he published his "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes," in which he gave illustrations of these stone implements. This work attracted no attention until the year 1854, when a French savant, named Rigollot, made a personal examination and was successful in his search for these relicts in the neighborhood of Amiens. He was soon followed by Sir C. Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Falconer, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, and other eminent scientists.
Boucher de Perthes, continuing his researches, was rewarded, in the year 1863, by finding the lower half of a human jaw bone, covered with an earthy crust, which he extracted with his own hands from a gravel-pit at Abbeville. A few inches from it a flint hatchet was discovered. They were at a depth of fifteen feet below the surface. This bone has been called the jaw of Moulin-Quignon, and is preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris.
The discovery of this bone produced a great sensation among English geologists. Christy, Falconer, Carpenter, and Busk went to France and examined the locality where the bone was found. They went away satisfied with both its authenticity and antiquity. Some geologists, however, doubted its authenticity; but at the present time all, or nearly all, recognize the truth of the conclusions of Boucher de Perthes.
Not far from the same locality, he was again successful, in 1869, in finding a number of human bones presenting the same character as the jaw of Moulin-Quignon.
In 1840, Rev. J. MacEnery, of Devonshire, England, found in a cave, called Kent's Hole, human bones and flint knives among the remains of the mammoth, cave-bear, hyena, and two-horned rhinoceros, all from under a crust of stalagmite. Mr. MacEnery began the explorations of this cave as early as 1825. He did not publish his notes on his discoveries but they remained in manuscript until