We find that Mr. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Sanford assert that the cave-lion is only a large variety of the existing lion—identical in species. Herodotus says: “The camels in the army of Xerxes, near the mountains of Thessaly, were attacked by lions.”
Sir John Lubbock, in his Prehistoric Times, page 293, says the cave-hyena “is now regarded as scarcely distinguishable specifically from the Hyæna crocuta, or spotted hyena of Southern Africa,” while Mr. Busk and M. Gervais identify the cave-bear with the Ursus ferox, or grizzly bear of North America. What is the bearing of these facts on the question of the antiquity of the remains found in the bone caverns?
Do these facts justify men in carrying human remains, found along with the remains of these animals in the caves, back to the remote period of one or two hundred thousand years?—a long time, this, for flesh upon the bones and food in the stomach to remain in a state of preservation.
“So fresh is the ivory throughout Northern Russia,” says Lyell, Principles, vol. 1, p. 183, “that, according to Tilesius, thousands of fossil tusks have been collected and used in turning.”
Mr. Dawkins says: “We are compelled to hold that the cave-lion which preyed upon the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and musk-sheep in Great Britain, is a mere geographical variety of the great carnivore that is found alike in the tropical parts of Asia and throughout the whole of Africa.” Popular Science Review for 1869, p. 153. It has been customary to speak of all these animals as “the great extinct mammalia,” and to regard them all as much larger than existing animals of the same kind, but three of the most important still exist, and the cave-lions, at least some of the specimens, were smaller than the lion of the present. According to Sir John Lubbock the “Irish elk, the elephants and the three species of rhinoceros are, perhaps, the only [pg 142] ones which are absolutely extinct.” Prehistoric Times, p. 290. “Out of seventeen principal ‘palæolithic’ mammalia, ten, until recently, were regarded ‘extinct;’ but it is now believed that the above-mentioned elk, elephants and rhinoceros are the only extinct mammalia. Dr. Wilson affirms that skeletons of the Irish elk have been found at Curragh, Ireland, in marshes, some of the bones of which were in such fresh condition that the marrow is described as having the appearance of fresh suet, and burning with a clear flame.”
Professor Agassiz admits the continuance of the Irish elk to the fourteenth century to be “probable.” It is certain that this elk continued in Ireland down to what is claimed as the age of iron, and possibly in Germany down to the twelfth century. It is also certain that it was a companion of the mammoth and of the woolly rhinoceros. The aurochs, or European bison, whose remains are found in the river gravel and the older bone caves, is mentioned by Pliny and Seneca. They speak of it as existing in their time; it is also named in the Niebelungen Lied. It existed in Prussia as late as 1775, and is still found wild in the Caucasus. The present Emperor of Russia has twelve herds, which are protected in the forests of Lithuania. During the session of the International Archæological Congress at Stockholm, in 1874, the members of the body made an excursion to the isle of Bjorko, in Lake Malar, near Stockholm, where there is an ancient cemetery of two thousand tumuli. Within a few hundred yards from this is the site of the ancient town. Several trenches were run through this locality, and many relics obtained by the members of the congress. On the occasion Dr. Stolpe, who was familiar with the previous discoveries at this point, delivered a lecture on the island and its remains. They all, he stated, belong to the second age of iron in Sweden, and consisted of implements of iron, ornaments of bronze, and animal bones; Kufic coins have been found, along with cowrie-shells, and silver bracelets. The number of animal bones met with is immense, more than fifty species being represented, and what is especially noteworthy, the marrow bones were all crushed or split, just as in [pg 143] the palæeolithic times. The principal wild beasts were the lynx, the wolf, the fox, the beaver, the elk, the reindeer, etc. Dr. Stolpe refers the formation of this “pre-historic” city to “about the middle of the eighth century after Christ,” and says it was probably destroyed “about the middle of the eleventh century.”
“During this period the reindeer existed in this part of Sweden.”
Recent scientific discovery demands that we should almost modernize the animals we used to regard as belonging to a period of a hundred thousand years ago.
“Scientists have been addicted to unwise and inconsiderate haste in the announcement of new theories touching alleged facts; they have blundered repeatedly in their efforts to confound the Christian and set aside Moses. No less than eighty theories touching that many facts and discoveries have been developed during the period of fifty years, that were brought before the Institute of France in 1806, and not one of them survives to-day.” Truly the history of scientific investigation reveals the same fallibility of human nature that is known in the many errors found in the line of theological investigation. Truth, in science and religion, stands true to her God—man alone deviates.