360 THE MAMMOTH AND RHINOCEROS. 



of a hind-leg were found in their natural positions at Menche- 

 court, near Abbeville, while the rest of the skeleton was found 

 at a little distance. In this case, therefore, the animal must 

 have been entombed before the ligaments had decayed away. 



M. Casciano de Prado has made a very similar discovery 

 in Spain, not far from Madrid. There the section was as 

 follows : first, vegetable soil ; then about twenty-five feet of 

 sand and pebbles, under which was a layer of sandy loam, in 

 which, during the year 1850, a complete skeleton of the mam- 

 moth was discovered. Underneath this stratum was about 

 ten feet of coarse gravel, in which some flint axes, very closely 

 resembling those of Amiens, have been discovered. 



Finally, as regards the rhinoceros, M. Lartet assures us* 

 that some of the bones bear the marks of flint implements ; 

 nay, more than this, he has even satisfied himself, " by com- 

 parative trials on homologous portions of existing animals, 

 that incisions, presenting such appearances, could only be 

 made in fresh bones, still retaining their cartilage." 



There is, then, no more reason for believing that the bones 

 of these extinct mammalia were washed out of earlier strata 

 into the drift gravels, than for attributing such an origin to 

 the implements themselves ; and we may, I think, regard it 

 as well established, that the mammoth and woolly -haired 

 rhinoceros, as well as the other above-mentioned mammalia, 

 co-existed with the savages who used the rude " drift hatchets," 

 at the time when the gravels of the Somine were being 

 deposited. 



The second of the three questions with which we started 

 (p. 350) may therefore be answered in the affirmative. 



Must, we, then, carry man back far into the past, or may 

 we retain our date for the origin of the human race by bring- 

 ing the extinct animals down to comparatively recent times ? 

 The absence of all tradition of the elephant and rhinoceros in 



* Geological Journ. vol. xvi. p. 471. 



