70 Oeioinal aeticles. 



Aurignac is to be referred to a period, coeval with the most ancient 

 geological deposits in which the products of human industry have 

 been foiuid, — the diluvial beds of St. Acheul and of Abbeville, — 

 that the violent phenomena of that diluvian period, and the great 

 cataclysm* connected with those beds, have not affected the original 

 conditions of this cavern ? It is obvious, in fact, that nothing has 

 been disturbed, and that, not only have a simple slab of stone a few 

 centimetres in thickness, and a thin covering of loose earth, sufficed 

 to preserve intact the sepulchre itself, but also that outside the 

 cave, the relics of the funeral repasts and the various implements 

 and arms left by the human inliabitants have not been disturbed. 



It has been observed above that, from its isolated position in the 

 mountain range of Aurignac, the mountain of Fajoles is completely 

 protected from the streams and torrents of the surroimding country. 

 Nevertheless, upon looking at the geological map of Trance, we find 

 tliat the colour indicating the great alluvial deposits of the Garonne, 

 Adour, &c.,t is wanting in the interval between the little valleys 

 which connuence on tlie plateau of Lanemezan. A very slight 

 elevation of the borders of this plateau has been sufilcient to protect 

 the whole of the intermediate region, (more than 200 square leagues.) 

 within which are comprised tiie district of Aui-ignac, from the 

 invasion of this diluvium or Pyrenean drift. 



* I am here obliged to repeat what I have ah-cady said elsewhere: viz., that the 

 grand words, revolution of the (/lobe, catachjum, iiniversal pirturhation, yeneral ca- 

 tastrophes, S,-c., have been introduced by a sort of abuse into tlie technical language 

 of Science, seeing that they tend to give an exaggerated significance to phenomena, 

 ■which geographically have been very limited in extent. These phenomena, how- 

 ever stupendous they may appear to us, as manifested witliin the limits of our 

 sensible horizon, are reduced to very little when brought down by actual calculation 

 to their relative importance as regards the whole surface of the globe. Evciything, 

 moreover, indicates tliat the successive production of these partial accidents forms 

 part of the nonual conditions of the course of nature, and that the great harmony 

 seen in the ))hysical and organic evolutions on the surface of the eai'th, has in no 

 case been aifected by them. 



Aristotle full\' comi)rchended those alternating movements of the land, which 

 at several intervals have changed the relations of continents and seas. He also 

 reduced to its regional projiortions tlie deluge of Deucalion, so embelhshcd and 

 magnified by the fictions of poetry. This great naturalist appears to have been 

 obliged to combat the fantastic conceptions of the revolutionist philosophers of his 

 time; and the rude apostrophe which he addressed to them, " ridiculum cnim est, 

 ]iroptcr parvas et moinentaneas pernnitationes, moverc ipsum totum." (Meteorol. 

 1. i. c 2.), might well, after tAvo thousand years, be applied to some among us, 

 geologists and paleontologists of the present day. 



f These alluvial beds or diluvium occupying the bottom of the valleys of the 

 Garonne and of the Adour, should not be confounded with the pebbles and 

 argillaceous deposits, lying at a higher level on terraces more or less continuous, 

 ordinarily on the left s'ide of the course of the rivers. These deposits, in which the 

 granitic, ophitic, and other feldspathic pebbles, are almost always in a decomposed 

 fr'tatc, belong to a more ancient period, or that of the original excavation of the 

 valleys. At the l)Ottom of the valleys of the Garonne and of the Adour, the granitic, 

 and other pebbles of the Pyrenean drift, are numerous and perfectly preserved. 

 None of the kind arc met with in the little valleys descending from the plateau of 

 Lanemezan. 



