Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/75

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APPENDIX.

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I. NOTE ON PLATE XV. FIGS. 98 and 99.

In Mr. Merk's account, it will be seen that these two figures are very briefly mentioned, at the close of the report on the Thayngen fauna. This arose from their having come to light when the report was in the press; and after the full descriptions of the various objects had been printed off. Under these circumstances it will be well here to quote the description of them given by Professor Rütimeyer, in his late interesting work, 'Veränderungen der Thierwelt in der Schweiz seit Anwesenheit des Menschen'—a work which refers again and again to the Kesslerloch discoveries, and which is well worthy of careful study. He says (p. 98), 'The drawings of the bear and the fox are quite new; they were found, while this work was in the press, in the rubbish which came from the cave at Thayngen.

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They are represented with great truth in the woodcuts,[1] while the corresponding figures, 98 and 99, of Mr. Merk do injustice to the original artist. The material is bone; and as far as I can tell by a careful comparison, they are on portions of ribs of the Bison priscus. The greater coarseness of the drawing arose from the very unfavourable nature of this hard and dry substance; and yet no one can help being struck by the point of Dr. Keller's remark when writing to me, that at all events the artist who ventured to draw the fox's head in front, and the bear sitting must have been a

  1. The cuts given here are copies of those in Professor Rütimeyer's book by the new 'Banks' process.