53 



YI._]SrEw Eeseaeches respecting the Co-existence oe Man 

 WITH THE Great Fossil Mammals, regarded as Charac- 

 teristic OF THE LATEST GrEOLOGiCAL PERIOD. By M. Edward 

 Lartet. (Ann, des Sc. Nat. 4me Serie. Tom. XV.) 



The town of Auriguac, situated in the arrondissement of St. 

 Gaudens (Haute Garonne), is placed nearly on the summit of one of 

 five eminences, constituting a hiUy range, whose geognostic formation 

 and upheaved strata manifest its relations with the dislocated spurs of 

 the Pyrenean system. The contour of this oreographic projection, in 

 which the strata of the chalk and of the uummulitic or supracretaceous 

 rock are not always incHned in the same direction, differs but little 

 from that of the tertiary hiUs which rise below it to the west. The 

 confused and miinformed traveller, consequently, approaching Aurig- 

 uac from that side, would not perceive the transition which is 

 manifested under his feet, were not his attention awakened by a 

 sudden change in the nature of the rocks and by the evidences of 

 dislocation presented in the road-cuttings. 



The road leading from Aurignac to the little town of Boulogne in 

 the same arrondissement, runs pretty nearly from east to west, on the 

 southern flank of the mountain of Portel. On the opposite side, to the 

 south, rises the mountain of Fajoles,* forming an_ elongated, saddle- 

 shaped ridge, which runs in pretty nearly the same direction, and which, 

 though of lower elevation, and nowhere precipitous, is nevertheless 

 completely isolated from all the hydrogra])hic influences of the district. 

 Between these two eminences, or mountains, is a contracted valley 

 along whose bottom runs the brook of Eodes or Arrodes, which, on 

 reaching, a little more to the west, the foot of the mountain of 

 Portel, turns sharply round to the north, and after running a few 

 kilometres to the north-west joins the Louge, a small river which 

 takes its rise on the plateau of Lanemezan. 



* In the patois of the cotmtry : 3[ountagno de las Najoles, mountain of Beeches. 

 But at the present time not a single beech tree is to be fomid either on this moun- 

 tain or in the surrounding country, nor does there exist any rememljrancc or 

 tradition even of their formerly having flourished there. The arboreal vegetation 

 of any region is subject to great variations in the progress of time, even indepen- 

 dently of any change in the climatal conditions. The valuable researches of 

 Professor J. Steenstrup on the Skovmosses, or Forest Turf-bogs of Denmark, 

 have shown, that in that coimtry there have been three distinct periods of arboreal 

 vegetation since the existence of man : 1, that of the Pine ; 2, that of the OaJi; and 

 3, that of the Beech, which continues to the present day. The soil, in process of 

 time, becomes exhausted of the elements more especially adapted to the nutrition of 

 forests of one kind or another. The disappearance of this vegetation involves that 

 of the species of animals which feed upon the foliage. The Cock of the Woods, 

 which was common in Denmark in the Pine-period, no longer exists there. The 

 discoveries of M. Tournal in the caverns of the Aude shows that at a certain epoch 

 in the pre-historic period, man consumed for food the Stag, Reindeer, Wild Goat, 

 Eelix nemoralis, Sj-c. At the present day the Stag is no longer found in the south 

 of France, the Reindeer has retired to the Arctic regions of Europe, the Wild Goat 

 is scarcely represented by rare descendants on the lofty peaks of the Alps and 

 Pyrenees, whilst Helix nemoralis has entirely disappeared with the forests from 

 that part of the country. 



