232 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ocean. Some live fish, lobsters, eels, etc., were enclosed in a cylinder, 

 and subjected to the same pressure as above, and for the same time, 

 i. e., one hour. At the expiration of this time the pressure was re- 

 moved, when the fish, etc., were found to have all perished; thus indi- 

 cating that Dr. "Wallich's statement needs additional confirmation. 



NEW FACTS RESPECTING THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN; DISCOVERY 

 OF HUMAN REMAINS IN THE DRIFT. 



At the commencement of the year 1863, notwithstanding the dis- 

 covery of some thousands of flint implements, knives, arrow-heads, etc., 

 in the drift-sand, and gravel of the north of France, and in similar 

 deposits in England, no fragment of a human skeleton, not even a 

 tooth, had been detected in connection with these ancient evidences of 

 man's existence. At the same time, in these same formations, and in 

 close contiguity with the worked flints, the bones of mammalia belonging 

 to living and extinct species, occur in considerable abundance. On 

 the 28th of March, 1863, M. Boucher de Perthes, the French geologist, 

 who has so greatly distinguished himself during the last few years by 

 his investigations into the antiquity of man (see Annual Sci. Dis., 

 1861, p. 331, and 1863, p. 276), discovered and extracted from a bed 

 of gravel, four and a half metres below the surface at Moulin-Quignou, 

 (a suburb of the town of Abbeville), France, the half of a human jaw- 

 bone, containing a molar tooth. The bed of gravel from which this 

 jaw was extracted contains the osseous remains of the mammoth and 

 the (extinct) rhinoceros ; and at a short distance from the spot where 

 the jaw was found, a flint hatchet was also at the same time disinterred. 

 Attention having been immediately drawn to this discovery, numbers 

 of scientific men visited Abbeville, among whom were M. Quatrcfages, 

 of Paris, and Drs. Carpenter and Falconer, of London ; and these 

 gentlemen, after examining the locality in question, concluded that it 

 was an undisturbed deposit, and that the fragmentary jaw was un- 

 doubtedly fossil. On the 15th of April, M. Perthes discovered in tho 

 sand of the same bank, 31 metres below the surface, (or one metre 

 above the line of deposit from whence the jaw was excavated), the 

 fragments of the tooth of a mammoth. 



A number of English geologists and paleontologists having, however, 

 in communications to the London Times and otherwise, expressed 

 doubts on the authenticity of the alleged human fossil, a sort of inter- 

 national congress was proposed to discuss the whole matter ; and such 

 a meeting convened in Paris on the 10th of May, 1863. The English 

 deputies consisted of Mr. Prestwich, Dr. Falconer, Dr. Carpenter, and 

 Mr. Busk. The French members were M. Milne Edwards, the emi- 

 nent zoologist, who acted as president of the meeting, M. de Quatre- 

 fages, M. Lartet, M. Delesse, and M. Desnoyers. Numerous other 

 scientists were also present at the conference. Three days were occu- 

 pied in discussing the question of the flint hatchets and in the examina- 

 tion of the jaw, the latter of which was taken up on the third day. 

 No decisive result was arrived at. The English members of the Com- 

 mission maintained the unauthentic character of all the flint hatchets 

 which were yielded by the diluvial bank at Abbevjlle, and nothing 

 was established on the other side to shake their convictions. The jaw 

 was sawn up and washed ; a black coating, derived from oxides of iron 



