In all the cases hitherto mentioned, the remains or relics of prehistoric man, however remote a date we may assign to them, have been found associated with fossil shells and mammalia of living species. In the instances I am now about to relate, we advance a step further back, and find man the contemporary either of extinct mammalia or such as could now no longer exist in the lands where once they throve. As the mere mention of the numerous caves in Belgium, England, France, and Germany, in which human bones or articles of human workmanship have been found embedded along with the fossil remains of extinct animals, would tire the reader’s patience, I select from the number a few which have afforded the most convincing proofs of the antiquity of man. The credit of having given the first impulse to these fruitful investigations is due to the late Dr. Schmerling, of Liège, who, with untiring zeal, devoted several years of his life to the exploring of the ossiferous caverns which border the valley of the Meuse and its tributaries. To gain access to many of the caves was in itself no easy task, as their openings could be reached only by a rope tied to a tree; and when we consider that, after these arduous preliminaries, Dr. Schmerling had frequently to creep on all fours through contracted passages leading to larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week, and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through a stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove, piece by piece, the underlying bone breccia nearly as hard, and that while thus directing their labours he stood for hours with his feet in the mud, and with water dripping from the roof on his head, in order to mark the position and guard against the loss of each single bone which they brought to light, we can scarcely praise too highly his rare devotion to the cause of science.