G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 181 



ity of certain asserted flint implements found in the fresh- 

 water limestone (lower miocene) of Beauce, and which had 

 been claimed to indicate the existence of man in France dur- 

 ing the tertiary period. This gentleman now takes pains to 

 apologize for his skepticism as previously expressed, in con- 

 sequence of the careful examination to which he has lately 

 submitted both these specimens and the locality where they 

 occur. He now considers the fact as established indisputably 

 that the genus ho?no, or man, did really exist at the time 

 mentioned, and that we may assume as proved that it ex- 

 tended through at least five successive faunas, viz. : the lime- 

 stone of Beauce, or the lower miocene, the Falun, the Tou- 

 raine, the pliocene or diluvium, and the modern epoch. While", 

 however, entirely satisfied of the human origin of these early 

 remaius, he by no means assents to the idea that they be- 

 longed to the present species of man, but thinks that the ex- 

 istence of these remains, through such a range of formations, 

 proves unquestionably that their makers must have possessed 

 characteristics in structure of special peculiarity ; and since 

 the genus rhinoceros occurs in these same five successive 

 faunas, represented**in each by distinct and successive spe- 

 cies, which, whether evolved one from the other, or the sub- 

 ject of as many distinct creations, yet exhibit strongly- 

 marked differences, he suspects that the species of the genus 

 man in all probability also varied in like manner. M. Raulin 

 expressly desires that his remarks on this subject may not 

 be taken as asserting a belief in the transformation of these 

 different species of man one from another, or as to the de- 

 scent of the older species from a common stock with that of 

 the primitive monkey ; but he thinks that, as we have no 

 means of judging the characteristics of the tertiary man ex- 

 cepting by the rude implements he has left, should his re- 

 mains ever be discovered, the present suggestions on his part 

 will be thoroughly substantiated. 1 B, August 14, 152. 



WEAVIXG AMONG LAKE-DWELLEES. 



An interesting communication was presented by Dr. Wei- 

 gert, before an industrial society in Prussia, upon the products 

 of spinning and weaving discovered in the pile dwellings of 

 Switzerland, in which he showed that even in the stone period 

 flax was cultivated in large quantity, and worked up in the 



