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



extinct animals and Avorks 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 entii'ely of made ground. Having obtained the 

 assistance of some intelligent workmen, he personally super- 

 intended their labors, and found outside the grotto, resting 

 on the sloping terrace h k, the la^'er 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 frag- 

 ments of fissile sandstone, reddened by heat, which were 

 observed to rest on a levelled surface of uummulitic 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 valky. 



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; among 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 

 removing hy skilful blows the edges of flint knives, the 



