SCIENTIFIC LABORS OF EDWAKD LARTET. 177 



the important part be was to take later iu the scientiiic; discussion of 

 the contemporariness of man and the hirge quaternury mammals. 



Through the interveutiou of the professors of the museum, the ground 

 where the excavations had been made at Sausan 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 excavations were made under the dii'ection of 

 MM. Laurillard, Merlieux, and A. I\lilne-Edwards; and in 18G9 M. Lartet 

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

 some very interesting fragments of large mammals and numerous re- 

 mains of small vertebrates. 



II. — INVESTiaATION IN REGARD TO TERTIARY PALEONTOLOGY. 



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

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

 number of articles upon various subjects connected with paleontology. 



In 18o5, Constant Prevost announced to the Institute the discovery, 

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

 large size, called Gastornis Parisicnsis. The zoological afiiuities 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 ; Yalenciennes compared it to the albatross, and Dumeril 

 to the stork, while Richard Owen thought it resembled the dinornis 

 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 M. Lartet described anotlier large bird, of the softened 

 miocene of Armagnac, the Felagornis miocwnus, distinguished solely by 

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

 of aU living birds. The pelagornis approaches the lougipennate palmi- 

 peds. 



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

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

 have escai)ed more easily than other vertebrates the motlifyiug miluences 

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

 whether they are iuitiallj' endowed with a specific jjower 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 Dryoplthccus Fontani, found in the neighborhood of 

 Saint Gaudens by M. Fontaiu. 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 the Bryopithecus places -it between man and the ape; 

 112 s 



