326 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 
cooling of basalt by Professor Bischoff of Bonn—that if the whole 
globe were constituted of that rock, it would take 350 millions of years 
to cool from 2,000° to 200° Centigrade. If the earth, then, has cooled 
down from a gaseous condition to its present consistence, it is evident 
animals could not have existed on it before it acquired solidity. Even 
after this it is difficult to believe in the general existence of life at 
temperatures above that at which albumen, the chief ingredient of 
flesh, coagulates. The Professor therefore takes a range from this 
point, 122° Fahr. to 77° Fahr. the temperature which has been sug- 
gested for our island in the London-Clay period, and sufficiently near 
to Professor Heer’s estimate from the evidence of fossil plants of 72° 
for Switzerland in the Miocene age to acquire credibility. Upon 
these data, Professor Haughton concludes that the earth, if of basalt, 
would have required 1,280 millions of years to become cooled through 
the required space since animal-life was possible on our planet. 
Not less important, although to some extent going over old ground, 
is the admirable analysis M. Paul Gervais has made of the evidence 
of the osseous caverns of Languedoc in respect to the antiquity of man, 
Much, indeed most, of this evidence has been long before the world, 
but the treatment it has now received is more scrutinizing and result- 
ful than any hitherto accorded toit. The first documents on this sub- 
ject are those of M. Tournal, who in 1827 noticed the association of the 
bones of man with those of extinct species of animals in the caverns 
of Bize. ‘Two years after, M. Christol published his notice of other 
fossil human bones from the cavern of Pondres, examined by himself 
and M. Dumas. Cuvier did not ignore the principal facts thus brought 
forward, but he never regarded them as sufficient to cause him to 
change his preconceived opinion, and he objected to them that they 
were merely cavern-remains, and not found in regular beds, such as 
those which contain the bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, the great 
bears, lions and hyenas ; the eminent naturalist’s notion being that in 
caverns the relics of various ages were liable to intermixture from 
natural causes, as well as accidents, and that the objects in contiguous 
positions might therefore be of very different dates. M. Gervais now 
takes the fullest evidence he can get of the caves of Bize and Pondres, 
and to the consideration of them adds new facts obtained from those of 
Roque and Pontil. The cavern of Bize is chiefly known through the 
long memoir of M. Marcel de Serres, who records, besides many species 
still found in the district, an extinct antelope, A. Christolii, and four 
kinds of deer equally annihilated and distinct from any described 
species—the Cervus Destremii, C. Reboulii, C. Leufroyi, and C. Tournalit. 
The Aurochs is also cited, although it is more likely the remains were 
those of Bos primigenius. The humerus attributed to the Arctic bear is 
probably that of the ordinary bear of the European mountains, as M. 
Gervais has obtained fragments of the latter from Tour-de-Farges and 
Alais. The Antelope Christolii did not differ greatly from the chamois. 
Two portions of the canons of a chamois in M. Gervais’ possession 
consist of only the digital ends and a very short portion of the diaphy- 
sis, from which he concludes that these bones were violently broken, 
and by the act of man—the long bones cracked by the primitive men 
