SCIENTIFIC LABORS OF EDWAKD LARTET. 177 



the important part be was t€ take later iu the scientific discussion of 

 the contemporariness of man and the large quaternary mammals. 



Through the intervention ot the professors of the museimi, the ground 

 where the excavatious had been made atSansan was purchased by the 

 government, and M. Lartet gave to the museum his rich collection of 

 fossil vertebrates, which may now be seen in the galleries of that estab- 

 lishment. In 1851 new excavatious were made uuder the duection of 

 MM. Laurillard, Merlieux, and A. Milne-Edwards; and in 18G9 M. Lartet 

 himself presided over some exijlorations, which led to the discovery of 

 some very interesting fragments of large mammals and numerous re- 

 mains of small vertebrates. 



II. — INVESTIGATION IN REGARD TO TERTIARY PALEONTOLOGY. 



The scientific activity of our lamented fellow-member was not confined 

 to the study of the fossil fauna of Gers. We are indebted to him for a 

 number of articles upon various subjects connected with paleontology. 



In ISoo, Constant Prevost announced to the Institute the discovery, 

 in the osseous conglomerate of JMendon, of the tibia of a bird, of a very 

 large size, called Oastornis Parisiensis. The zoological affinities of the 

 gastornis were warmly discussed. M. Hebert considered it a palmiped, 

 nearer a swan than a pelican; M. Lartet, although he allied it to the 

 lamelhrostral palmiped, thought that it came from a bird less essen- 

 tially a swimmer ; Valenciennes compared it to the albatross, and Dumeril 

 to the stork, while Eichard Owen thought it resembled the dinoruis 

 and large quarternary birds of New Zealand. At this day it seems 

 probable that the opinion of MM. Hebert and Lartet was correct. 



Two years after j\L Lartet described another, large bird, of the softened 

 miocene of Armagnac, the Pelagornis mioccenus, distinguished solely by 

 a humerus a third longer than that of the albatross, and consequently 

 of all living birds. The pelagoruis approaches the iongipenuate palmi- 

 peds. 



The comparative rarity of fossil birds in the marl-beds surinised M. Lar- 

 tet. It is possible that on account of their peculiar organization they may 

 have escaped more easily than other vertebrates the modifying intluences 

 of physical changes. Hence the great interest in studying them is to prove 

 whether they are initially endowed with a specific power of longevity suffi- 

 cient to continue them, by successive generations, down to the present 

 time. 



M. Lartet, after connecting his name with the discovery of the monkey 

 of Sansan, had the good fortune to describe a new fossil animal of 

 the same group, the Bryoirithccns Fontani, found in the neighborhood of 

 Saint Gaudens by M. Fontain. It was represented by a fragment of the 

 lower jaw, and a humerus, and was found in a stratum with the macro- 

 therium, the dicrocerus, and the rhinoceros, similar to those of Sansan. 



The dentition of t\\Q, Dryointhecus places -it between man and the ape: 

 I'Js 



