cxx GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



uary, 1874, a remarkable grotto at the foot of the Pyrenees, 

 near Lorde, on the River Oloron, a tributary of the Adour. 

 This cave seems to have contained deposits belonging to at 

 least two different periods. At or near the bottom lay a 

 crushed human skull, and bones of the skeleton associated 

 with barbed arrow-heads and utensils of bone, and about fifty 

 perforated teeth of the bear and lion, many of them bearing 

 engraved or ornamental lines, representations of barbed ar- 

 rows, fishes, and other delineations. One of the feline teeth 

 measures four and a quarter inches in length. These perfo- 

 rated teeth represent the ornaments or trophies of the individ- 

 ual whose remains were found at this place. The ancient 

 bear-hunter may have perished accidentally by fragments 

 falling from the roof of the grotto, the crushed skull lying 

 beneath large pieces of limestone. The ground below which 

 these remains were found bore unmistakable evidence of the 

 presence of rude hunters who used to resort to this grotto, 

 leaving there chipped flints and broken bones of the ox, stag, 

 horse, and reindeer. Ultimately, the half-filled grotto served 

 as a burial-place ; for in the yellowish-brown earth constitut- 

 ing the upper deposit MM. Lartet and Duprac found thirty- 

 two human skulls resembling the so-called Cro-Magnon type, 

 and many other bones, together with products of primitive 

 art, among them some beautifully chipped implements of 

 flint. The account of the exploration fills two numbers of 

 the well-known " Materiaux pour l'Histoire Primitive et Na- 

 turelle de l'Homme." 



Allusion was made last year to two human skeletons dis- 

 covered, together with animal remains and articles of flint 

 and bone, by M. Riviere, in the caves of Mentone, near Nice, 

 France. In the mean time the same explorer has succeeded 

 in finding in caves of the neighborhood three additional 

 skeletons, two of them belonging to children, the other to an 

 adult individual. The head of the latter was surrounded 

 with pierced shells and teeth of the stag, originally forming, 

 doubtless, an ornamental head-dress. There were also dis- 

 covered remains of a necklace, and of bracelets made of shells 

 and teeth. Curiously enough, this skeleton was stained with 

 oxide of iron, like those previously discovered by M. Reviere, 

 who thinks that the covering of the corpse with micaceous 

 specular iron formed one of the funeral customs observed by 



