60 DISCOVERIES OF MM. TOURNAL AND CHRISTOL. CHAP. IT. 



the same mud and breccia cemented by stalagmite in Avhich 

 land-shells of living species Avere imbedded, and the bones 

 of mammalia, some of extinct, others of recent, species. The 

 human bones wei-e declared by his fellow-laborer, M. Marcel 

 de Serres, to be in the same chemical condition as those of 

 the accompanying quadrupeds.* 



Speaking of these fossils of the Bize cavern five years later, 

 M. Tournal observed that they could not be referred, as some 

 suggested, to a "■ diluvial catastrophe," for they evidently had 

 not been washed in suddenly by a transient flood, but must 

 have been introduced gradually, together with the envelop- 

 ing mud and pebbles, at successive pei-iods.f 



M. Christol, who was engaged at the same time in simi- 

 lar researches in another part of Languedoc, published an 

 account of them a year later, in which he described some 

 human bones, as occurring in the cavern of Pondres, near 

 Kismes, in the same mud with the bones of an extinct hyena 

 and rhinoceros. I The cavern was in this instance filled up 

 to the roof with mud and gravel, in which fragments of two 

 kinds of potter}^ were detected, the lowest and rudest near 

 the bottom of the cave, below the level of the extinct mam- 

 malia. 



It has never been questioned that the hj-ena and rhinoceros 

 found by M. Christol were of extinct species; but whether 

 the animals enumerated by M. Tournal might not all of them 

 be referred to quadrupeds which are known to have been 

 living in Europe in the historical period seems doubtful. 

 They were said to consist of a stag, an antelope, and a goat, 

 all named by M. Marcel de Serres as new ; but the majority 

 of palavintologists do not agi-ee with this opinion. Still it is 

 true, as M. Lartet remarks, that the fauna of the cavern of 



* Annales dcs Sciences Naturelles, J Christol, Notice sur Ics Ossements 



torn. .\v. p. 348 : 1828. huinains dcs Cavernes du Gard. Mont- 



t Annales de Chimie et do Phy- pellier, 1S29. 

 sique, p. 161 : 1833. 



