GEOLOGY. 301 



The author, having for some time past made observations upon fos- 

 sil bones exhibiting evident impressions of human agency, was re- 

 quested by the President, who had examined the specimens indicated, 

 to communicate the results of his researches to this society. 



The specimens referred to arc: 1st, fragments of bones of Aurochs exhibiting 

 very deep incisions, made apparently by an instrument having a waved edge; 

 2dly, a portion of a skull of Megaceros JJibernicus, bearing significant marks of 

 the mutilation and flaying of a recently slain animal. These were obtained from 

 the lowest layer in the cutting of the Canal de 1'Oureq, near Paris, and have 

 been figured by Cuvier in his Ossem. Foss. Molars of Elephcis primigenius found 

 in the same deposit are figured by Cuvier, who states that they had not been 

 rolled, but had been deposited in an original and not a remanie deposit. 3dly. 

 Among bones, with incisions, from the sands of Abbeville, are a large antler of 

 an extinct stag (Cervussomenensis) and several horns of the common red deer. 

 4thly. Bones of Rhinoceros tichorhinus from Menchecourt, near Abbeville, where 

 flints worked by human hands have been found. Sthly. Portions of horns of 

 Megaceros from the British Isles. In reference to the remains of the gigantic 

 deer, M. .Lartet alludes to the statement, that stone implements have been found 

 in the Isle of Man imbedded with remains of the Megaceros, and that hatchet- 

 marks have been seen on an oak tree in a submerged forest of possibly still older 

 date. Gthly. Fragments of bone collected by M. Delesse from a deposit near 

 Paris, and exhibiting' evidence of having been sawn, not with a smooth metallic 

 saw, but with such an instrument as the flint knives or splinters, with a sharp 

 chisel-edge, found at Abbeville would supply. 



If, says the author, the presence of worked flints in the gravel and 

 sands of the valley of the Sonime have established with certainty the 

 existence of man at the time when those very ancient deposits were 

 formed, the traces of an intentional operation on the bones of Rhi- 

 noceros, Aurochs, Megaceros, Cervus somenensis, etc., supply equally 

 the inductive demonstration of the contemporaneity of those species 

 with the human race. M. Lartet points out that the Aurochs, 

 though still existing, was contemporaneous with the Elepltas primi- 

 genius, and that its remains occur in preglacial deposits; and, indeed, 

 that a great proportion of our living inammifers have been contem- 

 poraneous with E. primigenius and R. tichorhinus, the first appearance 

 of which in Western Europe must have been preceded by that of sev- 

 eral of our still existing quadrupeds. 



The author also remarks, that there is good evidence of changes of 

 level having occurred since man began to occupy Europe and the 

 British Isles, yet they have not amounted to catastrophes so general 

 as to affect the regular succession of organized beings. 



Lastly, M. Lartet announced that a flint hatchet and some flint 

 knives had lately been discovered in company with remains of ele- 

 phant, aurochs, horse, and a feline animal, in the sands of the Par- 

 isian suburb of Grenelle, by M. Gosse, of Geneva. 



THE KJHOHEXMODDIXGS OF DENMARK. 



This term (derived from Kjhohen i kitchen, and modeling, a refuse 

 heap) is popularly applied to the very interesting deposits from which 

 an immense number of arc-has ological and natural history specimens 

 have been obtained and placed in the celebrated Museum of Northern 

 Antiquities at Copenhagen. Much attention has been of late years 

 bestowed on the extensive peat bogs of Denmark, on account of the 

 antiquities in which they abound, and for their bearing on geology. 

 Prof. Steenstrap, the well-known naturalist, estimates that every col- 



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