20 RELIQUIAE AQTJITANKLE. 



California with the obsidian points for their arrows. And also in the north and south Pacific, at Sandwich 

 Islands, 21 north, and Tahiti, 18 south 39 degrees=2340 miles asunder similar indentations or chip- 

 pings are carried out in forming their axes from basaltic lava, but probably performed in the latter instances 

 with stone hammers. I myself witnessed at the Convent of Monterey the captured Indians forming their 

 arrow-heads out of obsidian exactly similar to the mode practised by the Esquimaux." 



II. Caves of Dor dog ne. The calcareous formations of Central and Southern 

 France abound in caves ; and their ossiferous deposits give evidence that, besides 

 those introduced by the agency of water, they comprise also those which have 

 accumulated when these caves were the haunts of wild beasts or the sheltering places 

 of men. Some have been the resorts of beasts alone, and some only inhabited by 

 man. In the comparatively few which have been tenanted by both, there are 

 usually indications that the earlier occupancy has not been that of man. The 

 osseous remains in the former class are usually entire, or, if broken, bear, in 

 tooth-marks, indications that they were broken by Carnivora ; on the other hand, 

 in those inhabited by man, the bones, except those originally without marrow, 

 are very generally in fragments. No part of France appears to be richer in caves 

 which have been inhabited by man than the ancient province of Perigord, a por- 

 tion of the old Roman Aquitaine. 



It is especially in the Valley of the Vezere, a tributary of the Dordogne, which 

 is an affluent of the Garonne, that these remains are in great abundance, and are 

 indisputably contemporaneous with the remains of animals extinct in that country 

 before history or tradition. In it, and in some of its lateral branches, have been 

 found the resting-places of an early race, either in the small caves usually 

 denominated grottes, or in the sheltered recesses of overhanging cliffs (abris), 

 the former sometimes at an elevation of one hundred feet above the river, as the 

 cave at Les Eyzies ; and the latter, as at La Madelaine, but little above the line of 

 an extraordinary flood at the present day from which it would seem that the 

 river-level has not materially varied since the accumulation of these osseous 

 remains. 



On the other hand, in the Cave of Moustier, at an elevation of ninety feet above 

 the river, and where the valley is of considerable width, the line of human occupa- 

 tion is covered, to the depth of five or six feet, by earth subsequently introduced, 

 filling the cave to its very top. We leave to those more competent to reconcile 

 these apparently conflicting facts, as well as to determine how much the formation 

 of this picturesque valley is due to erosion, and how much to fissure, subjects 

 which were matters of warm debate with a party of geologists who lately traversed 

 the principal portion of its course. 





