A^igust 14, 1879] 



NATURE 



Z77 



300 individuals, besides a mass of more tlian 200,000 fragmen- 

 tary pieces. These human bones were white, showing no trace 

 _ of the action of fire, although charred animal bones and broken 

 ■ pottery were found near them, the whole being embedded in 



I stalagmite and stalactite as hard as marble. The dolicho- 



I cephalic crania, protruding jaws, and flat tibirc, showed a close 



' affinity to the Cro-Magnon and I'Homme-mort remains ; and 



M. Prunieres is < f opinion, that at Beaumes-Chaudes we have 

 evidence of the existence of a r:>ce dilTering essentially from 

 those which have occupied France in modern times, and even 

 from the pre-historic men of the neighbouring dolmens of Lozere. 

 In the latter, and in the dolmen founders of western France 

 generally, he recognises the more civilised agricultural race which 

 waged war against the ruder cave-men, and finally exterminated 

 them. And he believes we have indisputable evidence of this 

 conflict of races in the fact, that while several of the Beaumes- 

 Chaudes bones were found to have slender flints impacted in 

 them of the kind discovered in the dolmens, and differing wholly 

 from the flint arrow heads characteristic of the cave-men, only 

 a few of the same form of silex were found lying loose in the 

 debris, and these he thinks we may fairly assume to have become 

 detached in the process of decomposition from the softer tissues 

 of the body, in which they had been arrested. Some of the 

 crania exhibited a hitherto unnoticed form of double-trepanning 

 of the right and left parietals, whose different cicatrices appeared 

 to show that a considerable interval had elapsed between the first 

 and second operation, which probably was the pre-historic sur- 

 gical remedy for convulsions, and aU affections included in later 

 ages under the term "possession." 



At Cravanche, near Belfort, a somewhat similar mortuary 

 cavern has been examined by M. Bernard. Here the seven 

 nearly perfect crania, extricated from an enormous mass of 

 human bones, were all remarkable for their large cubic capacity 

 (1680 centims.), the vertical index being 70, and the cephalic 

 index 72. No iron or bronze implements were found, but 

 numerous flints and serpentine rings were obtained. M. Leguay 

 has done much to settle the question of the implements with 

 which pre-historic men cut and carved schist and bone objects, 

 by his successful imitation of a schist amulet, found by M. 

 Riviire 24 feet below the floor of the Mentone caverns. In the 

 fabrication of this spurious antique, M. Leguay used some of the 

 flint knives so common in pre-historic caverns, which are blunt 

 at the extremity, and curved towards the middle ; with these he 

 was able after a little practice to effect all the graving and cut- 

 ting required to produce exact facsimiles of the pre-historic 

 originals, and he believes, that wherever we find an excessive 

 accumulation of flint-splints and fragments we have evidence of 

 being on the site of a work-place or factory, rather than that of 

 an ordinary primaeval dwelling. It should be observed that M. 

 Broca has used a cave-silex in trepanning a dog, which recovered 

 with less than ordinary inconvenience from the operation. The 

 neighbourhood of Luchon in the French Pyrenees has long been 

 recognised by geologists as an admirable locality for the study 

 of glacial action, evidences of which abound in the moraines 

 and huge erratic boulders which cover the southern flank of 

 Mont Espiaup, and block up the valley of the Oo ; but it is only 

 within the last few years that French archjcologists have directed 

 their attention to the innumerable megalithic remains which 

 occur in the district, and which, as in other parts of the Pyrenean 

 range, still maintain some of their ancient sanctity in the eyes 

 of the peasantry. These remains have now been carefully 

 studied by MM. Piette and Sacaze, the results of whose most 

 important investigations were given in detail in a paper printed 

 xn Bulletin (t Anthropologic, tome 12, scrie 2, 1877. From these 

 and subsequent researches, it would appear that the megalithic 

 I circles and rows have generally been made to follow the direc- 

 tion of the granite boulders, smaller stones having been used to 

 complete the desired outlines. Under the cromlechs and within 

 the stone circles numerous urns were found, containing for the 

 most part only ashes ; but in one iastance, two bronze armlets, 

 nearly identical with those of the Swiss lake dwellings, were 

 discovered. Local tradition and still existing practices warrant 

 the assumption that the so-called fire-stones — menhirs — were long 

 associated with fire-worship ; while the form of certain stones, 

 which in defiance of the clergy continue to be inade the centres 

 of various local games and dances, together with the character of 

 the mysterious and hidden ceremonials which are practised in re- 

 lation to them, as clearly point to a not wholly eradicated 

 observance of phallic rites. Near Maintenon, M. Lamy has 

 succeeded in proving the existence of menhirs and dolmens, and 



has opened a burial chamber in which, besides two adults, he 

 found a child's skeleton standing upright in the grave. 



The attention of several members of the Society has been di- 

 rected to the improvementof instruments'for the attainment of reli- 

 able craniometrical determinations ; and among these the double 

 graduated square, invented and used by Dr. Harmand during 

 hii extensive travels in India and China, and the portable ceph- 

 alometer, specially designed by Dr. Le Bon for the correct 

 measurement of the vertical height of the head, appear to have 

 met with the greatest approval. The former is described at 

 length in the tome 12, ser. 2 (1877), and the latter in tome I, ser. 

 3 (1878) of the Bulletin iT Anthropologie. M. Broca has drawn 

 attention to the injurious action of alcohol on the preservation of 

 crania, and recommends the use of nitric acid, followed by im- 

 mersion in glycerine before the varnish is applied. M. Personne 

 on the other hand prefers the use of chloral, under the action of 

 which he has found that the cranial bones contract, and become 

 as hard as wood. Much interest has been excited in the Society 

 by the report of M. Thulid, on the appearance of the brain 01 

 M. Asseline, one of its members who had belonged, like many 

 of his anthropological confreres, to the Societe d'Autopsie 

 mutuelle. M. Asseline died in 1878, at the age of 49. He was 

 a republican and a materialist ; was possessed of enormous 

 capacity for work, great faculty of mental assimilation, 

 and an extraordinarily retentive memory ; and had a gentle 

 benevolent disposition, keen susceptibilities, refined taste and 

 subtle wit. As a writer he had always displayed great learning, 

 imusual force of style and elegance of diction, and in his inter- 

 course with others he had been unassuming, sensitive, and even 

 timid. Yet the autopsy showed such coarseness and thickness 

 of the convolutions that M. Broca pronounced them to be 

 characteristic of an inferior brain. The fossa or depressions, 

 regarded by Gratiolet as a simian character, and as a sign of 

 cerebral inferiority, which are often found in women, and in some 

 men of undoubted intellectual inferiority, were very much 

 marked, especially on the left parieto-occipital. But the 

 cranial bones were at some points so thin as to be translucent ; 

 the cerebral depressions were deeply marked, the frontal suture 

 was not wholly ossified, a decided degree of asymetry was mani- 

 fested in the greater prominence of the right frontal, while, more- 

 over, the brain weighed 1,468 grammes, i.e. about 60 grains 

 above the average given by M. Broca for M. Asscline's age. 

 The apparent contradictions between the weight of the brain 

 and the great development of the anterior parts on the one hand, 

 and the marked character of the parieto-occipital depressions 

 on the other, attracted much attention, and the members of the 

 Societe d'Anthropologie have been earnestly invited by M. Hove- 

 lacque, in furtherance of science, to join the Societe d'Autopsie, 

 to which anthropology is already indebted for many highly 

 important observations. This Society is forming a collection of 

 photographs of its members which ai'C taken in accordance with 

 certain fixed rules. 



M. Chervin has drawn attention to the frequency of 

 stammering in the south of France, where from 12 to 

 13 cases are noted for every 1,000, while in the eastern 

 departments the proportion is only I for every 1,000. It 

 has been assumed that the defect was in many cases simulated 

 to avoid the conscription ; but according to the Abbe Petitot, 

 there are two districts in the Bouches-du-Rhone, where all the 

 inhabitants (15,000), stammer. This he ascribes to long con- 

 tinued inter-marriages among the communities, and to a 

 consequent degeneracy of the race ; and M. Chervin is of 

 opinion that meningitis, induced by the great solar heat, which 

 occasions so high an infantile mortality in this region, may 

 possibly, when not fatal, leave an exceptionally great tendency 

 to stammering. 



M. Broca, with his usual diligence, has continued to work out 

 \as?,yiitrD.oi cerebral topography m manand in the lower animals ; 

 and he has lately presented the society with a large number of 

 cranial moulds, on which every convolution, lobe, or other part, 

 is distinctly marked by different colours, in accordance with sex, 

 age, and race. M. Broca has also made the difference of 

 position of the occipital foramen in man and animals the 

 subject of two interesting papers, the former of which was laid 

 before the society in May, 1877. Following up the investiga- 

 tions of Daubenton, who, as early as 1764 m.ade this a subject 

 of inquiry, M. Broca, after a long course of determinations 

 which he gives in detail, has summed up the results of his labours 

 in the proposition that while in all animals but man the orbito- 

 occipital angle is constantly positive, ja. man it is almost always 



