The St. Johns herald., 1896-11-14
CARVINGS IN A CAVE.
Prehistoric Relics Discovered in Cen.
 tral France.


 In letter addressed to the Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. the well-known anthropOlogist, M. B. Riviere, announces that, in the course of a mission confided to him by the Ministry of Public Instruction, he has discovered in the Department of the Dordogne a prehistoric cave, of which he has explored 127 meters. Its walls These drawings are cut deep in the rock, some of them being buried under stalagmites. This fact is, according to NJ. Riviere, most important, as 1t con- Stitutes an undeniable proof of the great antiquity of the drawings in ques- ton.
 The caves of the Dordogne have for some forty years been noted for their relics of a very early race of men. They were first explored by M. Lartet, of France, and our fellow countryman, MT. ChriSty, whose fine collection IS now in the British Museum; but the one recently examined by M. Riviere appears to be of exceptional size and interest The special interest-if, in- deed, it be not unique-of NJ. Riviere'S discovery is that he has found some kind of incised ornamentation upon the actual walls of a cave. These carvings are sometimes covered by a film of stalagmite, which shows them to be very far from modern: the patterns, however, of the engrayings will be a yet more satisfactory proof of their antiquity; for the style of ornamental tion practiced by this folk is not so fa- miliar to experts that they can recog- nize it without difficulty. Both the ob- jects depicted and the material en- ployed throw considerable light upon the condition of Western Europe at this early age. The antlers of reindeer are commonly used for tools and orna- ments, and the bones of this animal abound in the debris on the floors. Ob- viously, it must then have been as com mon in Perigord as it now is in the ex- treme north of Asia or America.
 This fact, taking into consideration the present range of the animal, and re- membering the habits of the people, in- dicates that in those days Central France cannot have had climate more genial than that of Northern Norway at the present era. h addition to these animals, the red deer, the Irish elk, the wild horse, the glutton, and, possibly, the rhinoceros are depicted; but the most interesting sketch of all is fair ly accurate and rather spirited outline of a mammoth scratched on piece of tusk-theSe figures sometimes are ac- tually sculptured as if to form the han dies of knives or of tools of some kind, but in other cases, as in the last named, they are inclosed on the fiat or curved surface of a bone or of an antler Re mains of the cave lion and cave bear have been found, though not abundant ly, together with those of the hyena, the ibex, the chamois, and the saiga antelope, which now inhabit the plains of the Volga and Southern Siberia. These men of the Dordogne had prob ably attained to stage of civilization comparable with that of the Esqui- maux before they were brought into contact with Europeans, and there is so strong family likeness in the handi- work of the two that Prof Boyd Daw- kins, who has paid much attention to the subject, Is of opinion that the Es- quimaux are the nearest approach to descendants and representatives of this long-lost race. AS comparatively few bones of the Dordogne folk have been identified with certainty up to the pres ent time, we are hardly in a position to say what anatomical evidence there is for this view; but, so far as it goes, it is favOrable.-London Standard.