238 Professor Pictet on Fossil Bones, 



It was of importance to know whether they had been depo- 

 sited at the same time as the gravels, or whether they were 

 buried by some later and more special cause. Discoveries 

 similar to those of these remains, made in different parts of 

 our Canton, had, in fact, often remained unnoticed, because 

 they were conceived to be the result of events altogether 

 modern. 



M. Necker, in particular, in his Etudes Geologiques sur les 

 Alpes (t. i., p. 262), speaks of the bones of oxen found in sand 

 near Chaucy. This skilful geologist is disposed to think 

 that they owe their origin to this, that " in times, no doubt 

 within the limits of history, but very remote, to judge by the 

 condition of the bones, and on, the occasion of some great 

 disease among cattle, entire herds of large cattle had been 

 buried in these sands." 



But this explanation cannot apply to the bones of Matteg- 

 nin. I have, at different times, visited the quarry where they 

 are found, and have myself taken out many skeletons. I have 

 constantly found them at a depth of, at least, seven or ten 

 feet below the part of the soil influenced by cultivation, and 

 under beds of gravel very distinctly and regularly stratified. 

 I have never seen the direction and continuity of the beds in 

 the least degree altered above these organic remains. 



It must, moreover, be remarked, that the whole plain of 

 Mattegnin is covered with diluvian gravels, and that there 

 are neither great undulations, sections, nor water-courses, 

 which might derange the superposition of the beds. The 

 gravels which enclose the bones are composed of small stones, 

 more or less flattened, disposed in very obvious strata, alter- 

 nating with very fine sand. It is likewise evident, that these 

 gravels, situate 60 metres above the lake, and 70 metres 

 above that part of the Rhone which is nearest Meyrin, re- 



bottom of the valley of Geneva, without ever rising either against the Jura or 

 the Alps, perhaps we might regard it as belonging to the upper tertiary for- 

 mation, and as being contemporaneous with the ancient terrain of Bresse, de- 

 scribed by Elie de Beaumont. I make this supposition, but with much doubt, 

 for the characters which are drawn from the composition of this formation, and 

 the presence of a small quantity of lignite, are not, I confess, sufRciently de- 

 cided altogether to authorise it. 



