been washed into the caverns by floods an idea which unfortunately prevented him from taking due notice of the relative position of the associated objects.
Like most other scientists of the day, Sir Charles Lyell, who visited Schmerling in 1833, was then sceptical about the value of the latter' s discoveries ; but it is interesting to note that in his Antiquity of Man (pp. 67-9) he makes a long apology to the Belgian investigator for not giving the weight to his opinions which he then considered they were entitled to. The apology concludes as follows :— "When these circumstances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder, not only that a passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinise the evidence, but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighbouring professors of the university of Liége came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman."
The Lahr Skeleton.
In 1823 M. Ami Boué, an experienced geologist, extracted with his own hands portions of a human skeleton from an undisturbed loess at Lahr, on the right bank of the Rhine Valley, and nearly opposite to Strasburg. Boué attributed great antiquity to these bones, partly because they were so low down in the loess, and party because in loess of the same age remains of extinct mammalia had been detected. Sir Charles Lyell, when writing his Antiquity of Man, became interested in M. Boué's discovery, and corresponded with him as to the precise facts of the case, which he thus describes :—
"In this part of that plain the loess is at least 200 feet thick, and small hills and valleys have been excavated in it. A portion of the formation passes up from the principal into the tributary valley, the sides of which it skirts, rising to the height of 80 feet or more above the Schutter. It has been denuded at Lahr, so as to form a succession of terraces on the right bank of the small stream. On examining the lowest of these terraces, M. Boué saw, in the face of a perpendicular cliff of loess, about 5 feet high, a large bone projecting, which proved afterwards to be a human femur. On digging into the cliff the bones of nearly half a skeleton were obtained, consisting of the femur, tibia, fibula, ribs, vertebra, metatarsals, and others; but no skull. They lay in a nearly horizontal position, but not as if they were part of a corpse which had been buried there." (Ibid., p. 533, K.)
