412 Progress of Natural History, 



Since the discoveries of M. Delanoue, M. Tournal, a che-* 

 mist of Narbonne, has made other researches at Bize, in the 

 Aude department. The cave is in the Jura concretion. Part 

 of the bones are enveloped in a stony concretion, and, ac 

 cording to him, belong to those extinct species usually found 

 in caves. Others are in black mud, and wholly different to 

 the former. Besides these, not only in the black mud, but 

 among the calcareous concretions, are human bones and pieces 

 of pottery. M. Destrem, who has examined the same cave, 

 only found some remains of ruminating animals, principally of 

 the deer kind, and several bones of rabbits and birds. He 

 does not consider the human bones worthy of attention, as 

 they are neither impregnated with clay, nor covered with the 

 ferruginous crust, which both distinguish true fossils. M. De- 

 strem supposes them to have been recently lodged in these 

 caves, as they have several times been the resort of malefac- 

 tors. 



MM. Marcel, Deserre, Dubrueil, and Jean Jean, professors 

 at Montpelier, have begun publishing their description of the 

 caves of Lunel Vieil, long celebrated for the abundance and 

 variety of their fossil remains. There are three of them in 

 the same garden, and penetrating into the same hill, which is 

 formed of tertiary marine limestone, and which is more recent 

 than the coarse limestone of Paris. The remains are found in 

 a mud, which is full of rolled flints, and all mingled together, 

 without any regard even to the skeleton to which they be- 

 longed. These have not been rolled, but broken by some 

 violent shock, and have numerous fissures on their surface, 

 which have induced the belief that they have been a long 

 time without flesh. There are fourteen species of Carnivora, 

 seven of Ruminantia, seven of Pachydermata, and five of Ro- 

 dentia. In the first order are three species of hyaenas, similar 

 to those found in England, and mingled with excrements and 

 other bones, which bear the marks of the teeth of these ani- 

 mals. Notwithstanding this, the above gentlemen believe 

 them to have been brought thither by an inundation, which 

 has swept with it the bones of the whole neighbouring soil : a 

 belief which explains some extraordinary contradictions ; for 

 it is well known that hyaenas could not live in the same cave 

 with tigers, nor dogs with hyaenas; and yet, in the lapse of 

 years, these animals may probably have inhabited the same 

 spot at different periods. Another place, abounding in these 

 remains, exists in Auvergne, in a mountain near Issoire, which 

 has been explored with much zeal and labour by MM. De- 

 veze de Chabriol and Bouillet, and M M. I'Abbe Croiset and 

 Jobert. The first two have already published their observ- 



