804 Cn tlie Human Bones^ (S c. Jbund 



often as three times with beds of stalagmite (cav. de Scbockier, 

 pres de Liege). The first portions of mud have in general 

 been introduced with violence and deposited in very curved 

 beds, whose undulating surface has been irregularly covered by 

 mud of more recent origin. Less violent currents subsequently 

 passing over these beds, have sometimes covered them anew 

 with a uniform deposit of the same nature, have sometimes 

 disseminated the bodies lying upon the surface of the previously 

 existing mud, and have accumulated them in the irregular si- 

 nuosities of the inferior surface ; and sometimes, finally? these 

 currents cutting a horizontal section of all the deposits, have 

 necessarily exposed to view, at apparently the same geological 

 level, bodies belonging to very different epochs and very diffe- 

 rent beds. These different ages of the gravel and mud in undu- 

 lating beds, are well exhibited in the greater number of the 

 caverns of the South of France, as those of Bise, of Sommieres, 

 &c. ; and recent alluvion prevails also in some of them. The 

 irregular surface of the ossiferous mud is a circumstance noticed 

 in other caverns, although it has not been sufficiently remarked. 

 M. Desnoyers has observed it in the most distinct manner in 

 the cavern of Banwell in the Mendip hills in England, and M. 

 Bertrand Geslin has pointed it out in the caves of Adelsberg. 



Returning again to the comparison of historical and geologi- 

 cal proofs, M. Desnoyers points out that a great number of the 

 caverns of Perigord, of Sarladais, of Quercy, and of Guienne, 

 provinces which formed part of Aquitanian Gaul as it was li- 

 mited by Augustus, shew evident traces of habitations, and 

 even, agreeably to the narrative of Florus, vestiges of very- 

 ancient inclosures. In Perigord these are still known by the name 

 of Cluseaux^ a word which seems to be derived from the appli- 

 cation by Caesar of the term inclusae to such caverns. In se- 

 veral as in that of Breingues (dep. du Lot), and that of Combe- 

 Grenant (dep. de la Dordogne) described by M. Delpon and M. 

 Jouannet, many bones of quadrupeds, some of them of extinct 

 species, were found buried, like those of Languedoc, upon the 

 same surface which afterwards received the debris of the human 

 species and of rude manufactures. If we examine the external 

 surface of ancient Aquitania, we find that it is nearly as abun- 

 dantly covered as Brittany, by monuments of Gallic origin. In 

 the department of Lot alone, in the territory of the ancient 



