in recent years is that made by Herr Emil Bachler, director of the Natural History Museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Alpine region had not been considered seriously as a field for paleolithic research, since the latter period closed before the retreat of the glaciers to anything like their present extent. It is true, man might have penetrated into the Alps during an interglacial period, but the evidences of his presence would have been destroyed by the succeeding glaciation. Two stations in Switzerland of the Magdalenian epoch have been known for years, viz., Schweizersbild and Kessierloch, but these are north of the Rhine in Canton Schaffhausen.
It remained for Herr Bächler to make the discovery, some four years ago, of a station of late Mousterian age; not in a valley, or even the foot-hills, but in the Säntis Mountains, which lie between the lakes of Constance and Zurich.
The station in question is on the Ebenalp (above Appenzell) at a height of 1,477 to 1,500 meters. It consists of two caverns, with southeastern exposure, that enter the precipitous face of the rock, and one of which penetrates backward and upward, giving access to the top of the mountain as well as to the Weissbach valley lying to the northwest. The caverns are reached by foot-path from Weissbad, the most frequented one being by way of the gap that separates the Bommenalp from the Ebenalp. This gap was produced by faulting which left the Ebenalp standing about 300 meters above its neighbor. The last part of the way is very steep but protected by a railing. It would, in fact, be absolutely broken at one point were it not for a wooden bridge anchored to the vertical face of the rock. This is at a point just below the first or lower cavern. It is probable, therefore, that paleolithic man did not reach the caverns from this side, but rather from the back of the mountain and by way of the upper cavern. The communication between the two is by means of a narrow ledge. (See pl. 8, fig. a.)
These caverns have been known since 1621, and there is a legend to the effect that at a much earlier date they were inhabited by wild men. The little pilgrimage chapel of Wildkirchli that gives its name to the place was founded by Dr. Paulus Ulmann (1613–1680), priest at Appenzell. The chapel is in the lower cavern, and in the upper cavern where the hermit house once stood there is now the Wildkirchli Inn. The last hermit died in 1851, since which time Wildkirchli has been rather a belvedere for mountain climbers than a place of religious pilgrimage. The views are certainly superb and well repay the toilsome ascent. A place so full of the spirit of the past and of natural charms could not well escape the romancer, as witness the last chapters of the historical novel, Ekkehard, by the celebrated German writer, Viktor von Scheffel.
