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Unman Bones Jound in the Caves of Bi?ie, near Narhonne. 

 By M. To\n\^ Ala junior. 



1 HE caves of Bize appear to me to be particularly worthy of 

 attention, because some of the bones which they contain, being of 

 much more recent origin than any fossils hitherto discovered, 

 seem to connect the present geological period with that which 

 preceded historical records. In fact, there are found at Bize, 

 in the same beds, human bones and bones belonging to extinct 

 species, all possessing the same physical and chemical characters. 

 These observations are calculated to bring into doubt the al- 

 leged non-existence of man in the fossil state. They cannot be 

 confounded with the gross mystification of the shapeless block 

 of sandstone found at Fountainbleau, or with the human skele- 

 tons found at Guadaloupe in a quite recent rock, formed by the 

 agglutination of fragments of madrepores. They bear upon new 

 facts, and tend to prove that, in the present state of science, we 

 cannot, with certainty, say where the regular strata of the globe 

 terminate. The generally admitted proposition that there are 

 no human bones in a fossil state upon our present continents, 

 may therefore be questioned, or at least cannot be substantiated. 



It is true that the fragments of earthen-ware, the human 

 bones and modern marine shells, that are found in the caves of 

 Bize, may have been carried there long after by a current of 

 water which, having stirred, up the black mud, mixed it with 

 modem materials ; but, supposing this latter fact, and I am in- 

 clined to admit it, we should have an example of three great cur- 

 rents, which, at different epochs, made their way into the caves 

 of Bize, and carried into them or surprized there the remains of 

 organized beings, which then lived in the neighbourhood. 



The caves of Lunel-Vieil, which I have visited along with M. 

 Marcel de Serres, are situated in a tertiary marine limestone, oc- 

 casionally affecting the globular form. Their entrance is small. 

 The red mud and sand with which they are filled, appear to me 

 to have been deposited at the same epoch as the red mud of the 

 caves of Bize. Bones are rare in them ; for, after a long search, 

 even in places which had not been touched, I was unable to pro- 

 cure a single fragment. 



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