i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



matter, mixed with flint instruments. Tims tliey were kn' m in 

 1848, yet even as early as the last century De Saussure had < -awn 

 the attention of the scientific world to their existence. But in 

 1858 they were first actually described by M. Frangois Forel, a 

 Swiss. M. Riviere commenced excavations in 1869 ; it was not, 

 however, till 1872, while making the cutting for the railway, that 

 the first human skeletons became unearthed by him on March 

 26th, six metres and a half below the level of the older excava- 

 tions, in cave No. 4. Beside the one on which M. Riviere wrote 

 his monograph in 1873, two others * were discovered lying near it 

 about the same time, but so badly were they broken that he made 

 mention of only that one, which is now in the Natural History 

 Museum of Paris. On its head were found some shells forming 

 a circlet, as also some carved reindeer teeth in the same position, 

 while beneath the head was found a curved flint blade. It was 

 supposed to have been the skeleton of an Ethiopian, at first, but 

 there were differences that marked a race that has now passed 

 away, or become somewhat altered : the orbital cavities were 

 larger, and its height, though not great, was abnormal. We pass 

 over this skeleton,! and all that M. Riviere has already written 

 about it, and all the names X that he has given to the flint and 



* In a paper of February, 1892, by M. Binet-Heutsch, entitled Nouvelles Decouvertes 

 aux Grottes de Menton, we find mention of a skeleton that was found in the same cave by 

 M. Riviere in the following year (ISVS), far less well preserved than the first. It was of 

 enormous size, and was more than two metres in height; the skull was damaged duriag 

 the excavation. Possibly this may be one of the skeletons that we have mentioned, on the 

 excellent authority of one who was present with M. Riviere at the time, as having been 

 discovered with the 18'72 skeleton. Mention, however, is made by M. Riviere of three 

 skeletons, that he found, in a brochure entitled Decouverte d'un second Squelette humain 

 de I'Epoque Paleolithique dans les Cavernes de Baouss6-Rousse, Nice, 18*73. With the 

 measurements given of these last three skeletons by M. Riviere, M. Adolphe Megret (by his 

 method of multiplying the length of the phalangine of the medial finger by sixty-four), in 

 his Etude de Mensurations sur I'Homrae prehistorique, calculates their living heights to 

 have been respectively 1*984, 1"920, and 2-048 metre. 



f- An amusing Box and Cox episode recalls to our mind the name of Mr. Moggeridge, a 

 gentleman who many years ago lived at Mentone, and who published an excellent outline 

 panorama of all the mountains as seen from the Borrigo Valley bridge, and who had scien- 

 tifically studied the exact maximum and minimum temperature at the top of each summit. 

 This gentleman, being equally persuaded that he would find himaan bones beneath the other 

 remains of extinct animals and flint instruments, used to work at the cave during hours 

 when it was deserted, leaving the soil somewhat disturbed, to the bewilderment of M. 

 Riviere on his return the next day. It fell, however, to the lot of the Frenchman to re- 

 move the last layers of earth, and, therefore, to have gained the sole honor of being the 

 discoverer. 



\ Among other names, M. Riviere, in his monograph published in 1873, Decouverte 

 d'un Squelette Humain de I'Epoque Paleolithique dans les Cavernes des Baousse-Rouss6 

 dites Grottes de Menton, gave that of *' bdton de commandement " to a small bone, un meta- 

 carpien principal gauche, apjjartenant d V^Jqum cavallus (a chief left metacarpal of a horse), 

 which is 0"21 metre in length, or about eight inches. It is pierced by a hole, and he re- 



