under a Skull of the Extinct Rhinoceros hemiteechus. 249 
l Elephas antiquus dans les cavernes de France; mais en Angle- 
terre, dans la presqu’ile de Gower (pays de Galles), il a été 
trouvé, dans plusieurs cavernes explorées par le docteur Falcoe 
ner et le colonel Wood. II y était associé avec un rhinocéros 
(R. hemitachus, Fale.) despéce également ancienne ; et, dans la 
eaverne de Long Hole, plusieurs silex taillés ont été rencontrés 
sous une téte de ce dernier rhinocéros”’*. 
As his authority for the statement contained in the two last 
lines of the foregoing extract, given in italics, M. Lartet cites Sir 
Charles Lyell (‘ Antiquity of Man,’ 3rd edit., Appendix, p. 518, 
1864) ; and on referring to that work, I find the following sen- 
tence :—‘“ In Bosco’s Den no human bones or implements were 
discovered; but in the neighbouring cave, called Long Hole, 
where the same zealous explorer” (Colonel Wood) “ detected 
flint knives beneath the skull of Rhinoceros hemitechus, several 
fossil bones have been obtained which exhibit transverse and 
other cuts like those which M. Desnoyers would ascribe to 
human handiwork” (op. cit. p. 514). 
M, Lartet’s great eminence as a paleontologist, and the leading 
share which he has had in bringing to light and investigating, with 
such truth and sagacity, the evidence respecting the antiquity of 
human relics in France, are calculated to give weight and cur- 
rency to any statement adopted on trust and repeated by him with- 
out verification. In this instance he has been gravely misled by 
the authority on which he relied. No skull of Rhinoceros hemi- 
teechus above flint knives was ever discovered by my friend and 
fellow-labourer Colonel Wood in ‘ Long Hole’ cave, nor was any 
skull of that extinct species ever found in it. The flint imple- 
ments which he found there, together with the immediately 
associated fossil remains, were at the time transmitted to me for 
investigation, and out of my hands they have never passed. They 
have been shown by me to several men of science, including 
Sir Charles Lyell. A detached shell of a milk molar of Rhinoceros 
hemitechus was among the number: hence, probably, the origin 
of the assertion about the skull,—a small milk molar having 
been exalted into a skull found above flint implements, doubtless 
from inadvertence, misconception, or error of recollection. 
- The evidence of man having been a cotemporary of the earliest 
of the extinct mammals of the Quarternary period is sufficiently 
beset with difficulties, without being further perplexed by sup- 
posititious facts or exaggerated statements. Hence the necessity 
of this correction. 
21 Park Crescent, Portland Place, 
June 28, 1864. 
* Revue Archéologique, 1864, ‘Sur des figures d’Animaux gravées cu 
sculptées,” &c. p. 265, Separate edition, “ Cavernes du Périgord,” p. 35, 
