On Some Fossil Remains of Man | Page 5

adopt
the hypothesis which seems to him most probable: for my own part, I
hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person of
limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence that it belonged to
a man of a low degree of civilization: a deduction which is borne out by
contrasting the capacity of the frontal with that of the occipital region.
"Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the floor of
the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant; the skull was entire when
found, but the moment it was lifted it fell into pieces, which I have not,
as yet, been able to put together again. But I have represented the bones
of the upper jaw, Plate I., Fig. 5. The state of the alveoli and the teeth,
shows that the molars had not yet pierced the gum. Detached milk
molars and some fragments of a human skull proceed from this same
place. The Figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size
of which is truly remarkable.*
[footnote] *In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the
occurrence of an incisor tooth 'of enormous size' from the caverns of
Engihoul. The tooth figured is somewhat long, but its dimensions do
not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable.
"Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the molar teeth of
which are worn down to the roots.
"I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal.
"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Fig. 1); although it belonged
to a young individual, this bone shows that he must have been of great

stature.*
[footnote] *The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to
end in a straight line--so that the bone is rather a small than a large one.
"Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate that the
height of the man, to whom they belonged, exceeded five feet and a
half.
"As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which are in my
possession consist merely of a fragment of an ulna and of a radius
(Plate III., Figs. 5 and 6).
"Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained in the
breccia, of which we have spoken; it was found in the lower part above
the cranium: add to this some metacarpal bones, found at very different
distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the hand, and
one of the foot.
"This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones collected in
the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for us the remains of three
individuals, surrounded by those of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros,
and of Carnivora of species unknown in the present creation."
From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right bank of
the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three other individuals
of Man, among which were only two fragments of parietal bones, but
many bones of the extremities. In one case a broken fragment of an
ulna was soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalagmite, a
condition frequently observed among the bones of the Cave Bear
('Ursus spelaeus'), found in the Belgian caverns.
It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found,
incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone
implement, which he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate XXXVI., and
worked flints were found by him in all those Belgian caves, which
contained an abundance of fossil bones.

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the 'Comptes
Rendus' of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838,
speaks of a visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the collection
of Professor 'Schermidt' (which is presumably a misprint for
Schmerling) at Liege. The writer briefly criticises the drawings which
illustrate Schmerling's work, and affirms that the "human cranium is a
little longer than it is represented" in Schmerling's figure. The only
other remark worth quoting is this:--"The aspect of the human bones
differs little from that of the cave bones, with which we are familiar,
and of which there is a considerable collection in the same place. With
respect to their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of
recent human crania, few 'certain' conclusions can be put forward; for
much greater differences exist between the different specimens of
well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium of Liege
and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of comparison."
Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be observed, little but an echo
of the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer of the remains.
As to the critique upon Schmerling's figures, I find that the side view
given by the latter