Discovery of Fosail Bones in France, 271 



hills round about, which made a dreadful appearance. All 

 his chief nobles attended every morning at his levde, and no 

 day passed without his sending out detachments to skirmish 

 with the Romans. At length, after a hot encounter, in 

 which the Romans lost forty-six centurions, and Caesar him- 

 self lost his sword, the Romans retreated *. The brave Gauls, 

 with 248,000 troops, carried on the war, but were defeated, 

 and their king was captured f ." 



The Arverni claimed a common descent with the Romans ; 

 and when we consider their power, bravery, and character, it 

 seems improbable that they should not have been amused 

 with the same grand sports, as their confederates enjoyed after 

 they were subdued. We find that Vespasian indulged the 

 Britons with two amphitheatres, in the part of the island 

 where he met with the greatest opposition, having fought thirty 

 battles. 



With respect to these fossil bones, the hippopotamus is 

 African, the tapir probably Asiatic, (as the Romans had the 

 power of procuring it from Sumatra,) and the bears are per- 

 haps African, numbers from that quarter having been often 

 mentioned in their games. The fox and the otter were, in all 

 probability, natives of the spot. Thus, this collection, like 

 numerous others, consists of animals of the three parts of the 

 earth then known ; and when we compare all the difficulties 

 attending the mysterious and marvellous conjectures regarding 

 their origin ; and consider that most questions or facts in 

 geology are still subjects of difference in opinion among geo- 

 logists themselves, how can such theories for a moment be 

 placed in competition with the well-known custom of the Ro- 

 mans, to amuse their vanquished people with the ver}' animals 

 in question ; the only difference between the fossil and living 

 kinds, being in the species ; and that difference being accounted 

 for, by the Romans not having procured their wild beasts and 

 elephants from those countries that have supplied modern 

 naturalists with the specimens from which the inference has 

 been drawn, that the fossil kinds are extinct? 



Gibbon, c. xxxviii., says the sword was displayed as a great trophy, 

 and afterwards, when Caesar saw it, he laughed, 

 t Caesar's Com. by Bladen. 



U2 



