Lesley.] 3g8 L^ay. 



of the adaptability of sounds, especially the vowel sounds of 

 the English language, to musical compositions of this order. 



Mr. Foulke exhibited, also, a curious specimen of a triple 

 orange. 



Prof. Lesley made a communication on the Abbeville quar- 

 ries, which led to a discussion on the subject of the sufficiency 

 of the evidence, as yet obtained, for the alleged super-anti- 

 quity of the human remains found in the diluvium ; Dr. 

 Goodwin especially objecting the high authority of M. Elie 

 de Beaumont, and the doubts resting upon the precise rela- 

 tionship of the Loess. 



The interesting discussions of the last three years over the views 

 of our fellow-nieinber, M. Boucher de Perthes, and especially the 

 fresh discussions to which the alleged discovery of a human jaw 

 near Abbeville had given an impetus, induced nie to visit his famous 

 collection and the quarries from which his earlier specimens had 

 been obtained. In London, I had learned that the English geolo- 

 gists had accepted the genuineness and diluvial antiquity of the 

 implements, but rejected that of tlie jaw. Li Paris, I found, on 

 the contrary, that the geologists, with the exception perhaps of ^L 

 Elie de Beaumont, and also the ethnologists, had agreed to place 

 the jaw in the same category with the implements. Dr. Broca, the 

 Secretary of the Anthropological Society, had the goodness to show 

 me the manuscript report of the joint commission of English and 

 French savants, since published by the Academy, authoritatively 

 declaring its genuineness. On my return to England, Mr. Evans 

 assured me that the jaw was a forgery, and that he had proven the 

 forgery of many of the implements also. 



The change of view manifested by Sir Charles Lyell in his recent 

 work on the Antiquity of Man, in relation to the genuineness and 

 antiquity of the Natchez pelvis, had been commented on with much 

 interest and some surprise, as opposed to the current of English 

 sentiment respecting the whole subject. Sir Charles, when in Ame- 

 rica, had convinced himself that Dr. Dickeson's pelvis was a mis- 

 take, it being merely the os innominatum of some Indian girl, fallen 

 from an ancient graveyard at the surface above, among the debris of 

 the cliff formation which held the extinct remains of the post- 

 pleiocene period. Those of us who were present at the meeting of 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, at which Dr. 

 Dickeson presented the bone to the Cabinet, will remember the indif- 



