524 [April 16, 



v 



v 



where 0, 1} 2 are the roots of the cubic 



V being the determinant of the system A, B, C, F, G, H, 

 S the sum of A, B, C, and S that of the corresponding inverse 

 quantities. Moreover p lt q iy r^ are linear functions of p, q, r (the 

 components of rotation about the axes for which A, B, C, &c. are cal- 

 culated), the coefficients of which are determined in the paper itself. 



III. " On the Fossil Human Jawbone recently discovered in the 

 Gravel near Abbeville/' in a Letter to the President, by W. 

 B. CARPENTER, M.D., V.P.R.S. Received April 16, 1863. 



University of London, Burlington House, W. 

 April 16, 1863. 



DEAR MR. PRESIDENT, I esteem it a privilege to have it in my 

 power to communicate, through you, to the Royal Society some 

 particulars of the important discovery just made by M. Boucher de 

 Perthes, of a human maxilla in one of the gravel-beds near Abbe- 

 ville also yielding the now well-known flint implements. Having 

 been informed of this discovery a few days since, whilst staying in 

 Paris, I became additionally desirous of carrying out my previous 

 intention of stopping at Abbeville on my way homewards ; and ac- 

 cordingly, after a short visit to Amiens, which gave me the oppor- 

 tunity of disinterring for myself a small but well-characterized flint 

 implement from the gravel-pit of St. Acheul, I proceeded on the 

 afternoon of Monday last to Abbeville, where I was received with 

 the greatest kindness and attention by M. Boucher de Perthes. 



The history of his discovery is given in the following extract from 

 the local journal * L' Abbevillois/ by which it will be seen that the 

 specimen in question was removed by M. Boucher de Perthes him- 

 self from the bed in which the first indications of it had been found 

 by the workman employed in that part of the excavation : 



" A la fin de mars dernier, le terrassier Halatre, travaillant a cette 

 carriere, vint lui apporter avec un silex taille un petit fragment d'os 

 qu'il y avait egalement recueilli. Ayant debarrasse ce fragment du 

 sable qui le couvrait, M. de Perthes ape^ut une dent fort endom- 

 mage'e, mais qu'il n'en reconnut pas moms pour une molaire humaine. 



