1869.] GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. g5 



recognized the existence of vegetable fossils ; and this at a time 

 when the coal mines of England have probably reached their 

 maximum of production, and when precious specimens, in quantity 

 unsurpassed in any other country, are weathering on the rubbish 

 heaps of the mines, or lying unnoticed in collections public and 

 private. We siiould add that this omission is not to be remedied 

 by the repetition of isolated and imperfect efforts like that in the 

 present monograph ; but by associating the few competent cul- 

 tivators of fossil botany into a committee of discovery, to ransack 

 the existing collections and to prepare monographs exhaustive of 

 their material with reference to each genus. j. w. D. 



PRE-HISTORIC MAN IN FRANCE. 



(ReUqiike AquitaniccB^ by Edouard Lartet & Henry 

 Christy.)— Of this valuable work, which is intended to be 

 completed in twenty parts, seven are now published. Thouo-h 

 the name includes a large part of the south-east of France, it is 

 more particularly devoted to the interesting pre-historic anti- 

 quities which have been collected in that part of Perigord which 

 comprises the Arrondissement of Sarlet in the Department of 

 Dordogne. 



The remains are usually found in caves or " rock shelters " 

 overlooking the rivers, and formed by the action of the atmo- 

 sphere in wearing away tl e softer beds of rock. 



" The two sides of the valley rise in great escarpments of 

 massive rock, more or less interrupted by ancient falls. Their 

 summit is usually crowned with projecting cornices, below which 

 are great horizontal niches, or hollow flutings. These great 

 flutings are strikingly evident at the same level on the two sides 

 of the valley where the escarpments overlook the river, and 

 where they are continued in the rocks bordering the lateral 

 valley, down which small streams run into the Vezere." 



The implements found in these caves consist wholly of chipped 

 flint, and reindeer horn ; associated with large quantities of 

 bones of reindeer, horse, aurochs, &c. No polished stone imple- 

 ments have been found, nor bones of domesticated animals, which 

 are supposed to have belonged to a much later period. The flint 

 implements are principally of four kinds ; nuclei or cores, 

 flakes, worked spear and arrow heads, and scrapers. The nuclei 

 are blocks of flint which have been used to supply flakes from 

 time to time, and have thus been gradually split down to lono- or 



