In 1866 a great quantity of bones and broken instruments were found at the bottom of an ancient glacier-moraine in the neighbourhood of Rabensburg, not far from the lake of Constance. The bones of the reindeer formed about ninety-eight hundredths of these remains. The other _débris_ were the bones of the horse, the wolf, the brown bear, the white fox, the glutton and the ox. In 1858, on a mountain near Geneva, a cave was discovered about 12 feet deep and 6 feet wide, which contained, under a layer of carbonate of lime, a great quantity of flints and bones. The bones of the reindeer formed the great majority of them, for eighteen skeletons of this animal were found. The residue of the remains were composed of four horses, six ibex, intermingled with the bones of the marmot, the chamois, and the hazel-hen; in short, the bones of the whole animal population which, at the present time, has abandoned the valleys of Switzerland, and is now only to be met with on the high mountains of the Alps. FOOTNOTES: [7] 'Origine de la Navigation et de la Pêche.' Paris, 1867, p. 25. [8] 'Pre-Historic Times,' 2d ed. p. 319. [9] 'L'Homme Fossile.' Brussels, 1868 (page 71). [10] 'The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,' by Sven Nilsson, p. 155. London, 1868. [11] 'Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ,' by Éd. Lartet and H. Christy. London, 1865, &c. [12] 'Notice sur les Fouilles Paléontologiques de l'Age de la Pierre exécutées à Bruniquel et Saint-Antonin,' by V. Brun. Montauban, 1867. III. THE POLISHED-STONE EPOCH; OR, THE EPOCH OF TAMED ANIMALS. CHAPTER I. The European Deluge--The Dwelling-place of Man during the Polished-stone Epoch--The Caves and Rock-shelters still used as Dwelling-places--Principal Caves belonging to the Polished-stone Epoch which have been explored up to the present Time--The Food of Man during this period. Aided by records drawn from the bowels of the earth, we have now traversed the series of antediluvian ages since the era when man first made his appearance on the earth, and have been enabled, though but very imperfectly, to reconstruct the history of our primitive forefathers. We will now leave this epoch, through the dark night of which science seeks almost in vain to penetrate, and turn our attention to a period the traces of which are more numerous and more easily grasped by our intelligence--a period, therefore, which we are able to characterise with a much greater degree of precision.