56 OBIGINAL ARTICLES. 



cated with sufficient precision, did not allow of our ascertaining tlie 

 material of which they were composed, nor of forming any opinion 

 with respect to the pui'poses for which they might be intended. But 

 M. Leymerie having been so obliging as to forward them to me at 

 Paris, through our common friend M. Collomb, I have been enabled 

 to determine their structure, which appears to me to be analogous 

 with that of certain marine shells. The slightly convex face of some 

 of the discs, though worn and half polished by artificial rubbing, still 

 affords some traces of the projecting cost(B of the shell of a species of 

 Cardium. My first surmise to this effect has since been confirmed 

 by the stricter examination, which M. Deshayes, at my request, has 

 been good enough to make of one of these bodies.* 



* M. de Vibrayc has recently obtained twenty -four s)nall perforated discs of tlie 

 same material and form. These were found in a cromlech in the dejiartment of the 

 Lozere about five miles from Meude ; tlii.s cromlech, which had probably been used 

 as a sepulchre, contained human remains, together with some bones of animals of 

 existing species. There were also found, at the same time and place, a long flint- 

 knife, with some spear- and arrow-heads of the same material. These latter olijccts, 

 from the finish of their manufacture, and the other accessories of the burial jilace, 

 indicated an epoch far more recent than that of the Aurignac cavern. Perforated 

 beads of the same form but in different materials, are not rare in the necklaces and 

 other ornaments found amongst the Assyrian antiquities. 



It is well known, that at St. Achcul near Amiens, in the same diluvial beds that 

 have furnished so many flint implements, there have also been collected a consider- 

 able number of beads, mostly formed of the poly]iaries of Coscinopora (jlohdaris 

 Beads of this kind, many of which are pierced artificially, are not rare in collections, 

 and they may be seen in the Louvre, the Cluny Museum, and at tlie Jardin des 

 Plantcs, alongside the flint implements bronglit from St. Achcul. I had noticed in 

 the Assyrian Museum in the Louvre, similar beads which had been found in the 

 excavations at Khorsabad, on the supposed site of the ancient Nineveh. Having 

 obtained from M. Barbet de Jouy, one of the keepers of the Louvre, permission to 

 make a closer comparison between the Khorsabad beads and others recently brought 

 by M. de Vibraye from St. Acheul, we thought it better, in order to give an 

 authoritative support to the surmise we had entertained, to refer the matter to M. 

 ]VIilne-Ed wards, Member of the Institute and Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. 

 The resxdt of the examination made by this competent judge was to show an 

 identity of form and species between at least one of the perforated corals brought 

 from the ruins of Nineveh, and those found in the (Hluvium at St. Achcul. 



[These bead-like Foraminifera, Orhitollnn concava, according to Mr. Frcstwicli, 

 (Phil. Trans. Vol. 150, p 290), occur abundantly in the Chalk, and they are found 

 some whole and some perforated, so that the latter condition can no longer be 

 regarded as artificial. — Eds.] 



M. de Longperricr had also pointed out to me a complete identity of form between 

 the obsidian-knives of Mexico, and those of the same material found by M. Place 

 in the foundations of Nineveh, where they had probably been deposited as a kind of 

 votive offering. 



At the time of the conquest of Mexico, Fernando Cortcz obseiTcd that the 

 native barbers cut the hair and beards of their customers with razors made of 

 obsidian. Fragments of the same mineral and fashioned in a similar manner, have 

 been collected on the field of Marathon, and may be seen in the Museum of 

 Artillery, in the same glass cases with the flint arms of ancient Gaul. Thus wo 

 perceive the same form cmploj'cd in the same manner, at extreme geographical 

 distances apart, and at very considerable chronological intervals. " Man," says M. 

 Troyon, (Habitations lacustres, &c.) " placed under analogous circumstances, acts 

 in an analogous manner, irrespective of time or place." 



