G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 293 



the inhabitants or to envelop their dwellings after they had 

 been abandoned. 3 B^ February 10, 1875, 246. 



DID MAN EXIST IX THE TERTIARY PERIOD OF EUROPE ? 



Not long ago much interest was attracted by the an- 

 nouncement of the discovery in the tertiary coal of Wetzi- 

 kon, in Switzerland, of pieces of wood converted to coal, 

 which, it was claimed, had been sharpened artificially by 

 human hands ; and a vastly greater antiquity was claimed 

 for man in Europe than had been previously demonstrable. 

 This inference, however, was seriously questioned by com- 

 petent authority, who believed that some explanation other 

 than that could be found for it ; and now it is maintained 

 wnth great show of plausibility that it is the work of the 

 beaver or some other large rodent, or the rubbing together 

 by floods of broken twigs. 19, XXIX., 274. 



MAN IN THE POST-PLIOCENE OF BUENOS AYRES. 



In a letter addressed by Mr. Florentine Ameghino to Ger- 

 vais's Journal of Zoology^ he communicates the discovery of 

 large numbers of fossil bones at a depth of thirteen feet in an 

 undisturbed quaternary bed near Mercedes, and about twen- 

 ty leagues from Buenos Ayres. With these appeared great 

 quantities of charcoal, baked clay, burned and scratched bones, 

 arrow-points, knives and chisels of flint, and a large number of 

 bones belonging to some fifteen species of mammalia which 

 are for the most part extinct among them Holojjhorns or- 

 natus^ Holophorus bunneisteri, Lagostoinii8 angustidens^ (Ja- 

 ms protalopex^ Eutatus seguini^ and Triodon inercedensis. 



In various places along the Rio Lugan, near Mercedes and 

 Lugan, he found the bones of* extinct species, worked by 

 human hands, together with knives and stone implements of 

 various kinds. The species identified by him are the Masto- 

 don humboldtii, Mylodon robiistiis, Ursus bonariejisis^ Pam- 

 patheriuni typus^ Bos pampceiis, Toxodon platensis^ Lagosto- 

 mns fossilis, Glyptodon elongatus, Vidpes fossilis^ JEquus cur- 

 videns^ and Equus neogceus. 14 B^ lY., 526. 



LAURIUM SILVER MINE. 



The following statement highly interesting if true is 

 now being circulated on the basis of " a letter just received 



