268 Discover^/ of Fossil Bones in France, 



the surface of the ground ; the opposite face was covered with 

 mosses and byssi. Here, instead of treasure, they found a pro- 

 digious quantity of bones, some mingled with earth and stones, 

 and others very carefully placed in narrow fissures of the 

 rock. Several heads of a species of deer, now unknown, and 

 other bones, were discovered, without any mixture of earth, in 

 a small cavity, covered over with a rude slab placed with great 

 care. Here and there, the mass of stones and common soil 

 was interrupted by small quantities of an alluvial earth of clay 

 and sand, like that which the river Sele deposits at the present 

 day : but no current of water could have brought them there ; 

 they had been formed by men, since some were pressed, regu- 

 larly arranged, and surrounded with very white calcareous 

 stones, which must have been soiled by water, had it deposited 

 these alluvial matters so regularly. The elevation of this 

 grotto, being 300 metres above the river, precluded the 

 idea that the waters of the Sele could have reached it. 

 The other galleries presented nothing but bones placed in the 

 same manner ; the whole together would have formed a mass 

 of more than twenty cubic metres. Some of them were en- 

 crusted, and others inclosed in a calcareous breccia with a 

 crystalline paste. The greater number were so well preserved, 

 that they looked as if the flesh had been recently detached 

 from them ; but as soon as they were exposed to the external 

 air they became scaly and whitish. Among them were a skull 

 and three teeth of a rhinoceros, three species of deer now un- 

 known upon the globe : the horns have some resemblance to 

 those of a young rein-deer, the fragments of the horn of a large 

 deer, equally unknown, but allied to the common stag, the hume- 

 rus of a large ox, and a horse's femur. M. Delpon infers from 

 the existence of these foreign animals on our soil, a diminution 

 of temperature ; and in an historical view he supposes the bones 

 are remains of the sacrifices of the Druids. We are of opinion 

 that they are of a date much anterior to the Druids, and even 

 to the establishment of the human species in these countries ; 

 and that their regular arrangement is the result of the supersti- 

 tion of the first inhabitants, or the amusement of herdsmen." 

 — Bulletin Universel^ Nov. 1825*. 



* Edinb. Phil. Journal, April, 1826. 



