370 Chronicles of Science. [July, 
This question of the Miocene age of the human species was 
discussed before the Académie des Sciences on April 20th, when 
MM. Garrigou and Filhol requested the opening of a sealed packet 
which had been deposited with the Academy by them on May 16, 
1864. From this it appears that at that date their observations 
made in the deposits of Sansan led them to regard the Miocene age 
of man as extremely probable. The evidence on which they relied 
consisted of bones split longitudinally, as they are frequently found 
in caverns, having been thus broken by man for the purpose of 
extracting the marrow. The evidence is slender ; hence, in all pro- 
bability, their timidity in not publishing their views four years ago; 
but now that other evidence, more or less questionable, pointing in 
the same direction, has been discovered, they have naturally regarded 
their own observations as equally worthy of publicity. 
In the last volume of the ‘Proceedings’ of the Asiatic Society of 
Bengal we notice a paper on the Ethnology of India, by Dr. J. B. 
Davis, in which that author strives to show that philology is not so 
sure a guide in Ethnology as craniology ; consequently he is led to 
object to the Aryan hypothesis. “If Europeans and Hindoos be 
of the same family, why cannot the former migrate to and live in 
India? How is it that the people of India are celebrated for the 
smallness of their heads, while the inhabitants of Europe have large 
heads?” Again, he remarks that it is admitted that the Syro- 
Arabian division of mankind is physically identical with the Aryan 
section ; still the two cannot be allied, because the languages of the 
two families utterly sunder them.” In all probability, as Mr. 
Blanford remarked at the reading of the paper, a natural classifica- 
tion must be arrived at by the aid of a number of characters, as in 
Botany. Dr. Davis also objects to the hypothesis of the unity of 
the human race, regarding our species as, “in the main, an aggre- 
gate of families formed by the hand of the Creator, in every different 
locality in which it is found, and each constituted by that wise Provi- 
dence for the climate and productions with which it is surrounded.” 
We also notice a series of admirable notes on the occurrence of 
chipped flakes of agate, quartzite, flint, &., in India, followed by a 
table in which all the information on the subject is shown at once. 
The implements are divided into the three following classes :— 
A. Cores and flakes of agate, flint, &. 
B. Chipped axes, &c., chiefly of quartzite. 
C. Polished ‘celts’ of trap, chert, jade, &e. 
These objects are extensively distributed, not only in India itself, 
but also in some of the islands of the Indian Ocean. 
With respect to the antiquity of man in India, Mr. W. T. Blan- 
ford expresses his belief that there is evidence of the existence of 
man in India at a much earlier period than in Europe. Unfor- 
tunately the “evidence” consists of but one flake found im sitw in 
