184 WORKS OF ART FOUND OUTSIDE THE GROTTO. CHAP. x. 



extinct animals and works of art, found in digging the 

 original trench made by Bonnemaison through the bed d 

 under the talus, and some others brought out from the interior 

 of the grotto, determined to investigate systematically what 

 remained intact of the deposits outside and inside the vault, 

 those inside, underlying the human skeletons, being supposed 

 to consist entirely of made ground. Having obtained the 

 assistance, of some intelligent workmen, he personally super 

 intended their labours, and found outside the grotto, resting 

 on the sloping terrace h k, the layer of ashes and charcoal 

 c, about seven inches thick, extending over an area of six 

 or seven square yards, and going as far as the entrance 

 of the grotto and no farther, there being no cinders or 

 charcoal in the interior. Among the cinders outside the 

 vault were fragments of fissile sandstone, reddened by heat, 

 which were observed to rest on a levelled surface of nummu- 

 litic limestone and to have formed a hearth. The nearest 

 place from whence such slabs of sandstone could have been 

 brought was the opposite side of the valley. 



Among the ashes, and in some overlying earthy layers, d, 

 separating the ashes from the talus e, were a great variety 

 of bones and implements ; amongst the latter not fewer 

 than a hundred flint articles knives, projectiles, sling 

 stones, and chips, and among them one of those siliceous 

 cores or nuclei with numerous facets, from which flint flakes 

 or knives had been struck off, seeming to prove that 

 some instruments were occasionally manufactured on the 

 very spot. 



Among other articles outside the entrance was found a 

 stone of a circular form, and flattened on two sides, with a 

 central depression, composed of a tough rock which does not 

 belong to that region of the Pyrenees. This instrument is 

 supposed by the Danish antiquaries to have been used for re 

 moving by skilful blows the edges of flint knives, the 



