798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But, profoundly convinced of the reality of his discovery, the Abbe 

 Bourgeois did not lose heart on suffering this partial repulse. He con- 

 tinued his researches with vigor, and again, in 1872, provided now with 

 better specimens, he raised the question at the Brussels Congress. 

 There he made some headway among the best experts. But on the 

 commission which was specially appointed to examine the flints were 

 several members who knew but very little directly about the manner 

 of working on flint, and they either hesitated or passed an adverse 

 judgment. Hence the question was not definitively settled. This re- 

 sult, half success, half failure, stimulated the ardor of the accomplished 

 naturalist ; he continued his investigations, and so succeeded in collect- 

 ing for the Anthropological Exposition a remarkable series of flint im- 

 plements which dispels all doubt. 



This collection was made up of flints which beyond a doubt had 

 undergone the action of fire. They are full of cracks, and even quite 

 discolored. With these are other flints, far more numerous, which have 

 simply been split by fire. Among them are some which unquestionably 

 have been neatly and regularly retouched on one or both of their mar- 

 gins. Every one who has carefully and impartially examined them has 

 admitted that the second dressing {les retailles) was certainly inten- 

 tional, and consequently that it was the work of an intelligent creature. 



It remains to determine the age to which these flints belong. They 

 were collected at Thenay, in formations clearly iyi situ and intact, and 

 belonging to the formation known among geologists as " calcaires de 

 Beauce " ; but now these calcaires de Beauce constitute the lower strata 

 of the Middle Tertiary. This is shown by the fauna which the Abbe 

 Bourgeois exhibited in connection with the flints. This fauna, which 

 comes from the sands of the Orleanais, which directly overlie the cal- 

 caires de Beauce, comprises great mastodons and dinotheriums belong- 

 ing to the Lower Miocene. Then there is the acerotherium, a genus akin 

 to the rhinoceros, and which was found in the very same stratum as the 

 fire-split and redressed flints. 



It results, therefore, from the Abbe Bourgeois's researches, that 

 during the Middle Tertiary there existed a creature, precursor of man, 

 an anthropopithecus, which was acquainted with fire and could make 

 use of it for splitting flints. It also knew how to trim the flint-flakes 

 thus produced and to convert them into tools. 



This curious and interesting discovery for a long time stood alone, 

 and arguments were even drawn from this isolatedness to favor its 

 rejection. Fortunately, another French observer, M, J. B. Rames, 

 has found in the vicinity of Aurillac (Cantal) in the strata of the upper 

 part of the Middle Tertiary — here, too, in compan}' with mastodons and 

 dinotheriums, though of more recent species than those of Thenay 

 — flints which also have been redressed intentionally. Here, however, 

 the flints are no longer split by fire, but by tapping. It is something 

 more than a continuation, it is a development. Among the few speci- 



