66 EELIQUI^E AQUITANKLE. 



Lastly, towards the end of March, two Contractors at Les Eyzies, MM. Bertou- 

 Mevrou and Delmar6s, took away still more of the talus, as material for a road 

 near by ; and, after having removed 4 metres of the debris covering the Shelter, 

 the workmen, digging further beneath the projecting ledge which they had thus 

 exposed, soon came upon broken bones, worked flints, and, lastly, human skulls, 

 the antiquity and scientific importance of which the Contractors immediately 

 recognized. With prudence and good feeling, such as are unfortunately too 

 often wanting, but which all lovers of Palethnological Studies will be glad to 

 hear of, the Contractors at once stopped the works, and hastened to write to 

 M. Alain Laganne, whose affairs had taken him to Bordeaux. Returning to 

 Les Eyzies, M. Laganne some days after exhumed, in the presence of MM. Galy 

 and Simon, of Pe"rigueux, two skulls and some other fragments of a human 

 skeleton, as well as worked bones of Reindeer and many chipped flint implements. 

 It was now that the Minister for Public Instruction sent me to Les Eyzies, 

 where, having surmounted some unexpected difficulties, thanks to M. the Prefect 

 of the Dordogne, and to the obliging concurrence of MM. the Mayor and the 

 Cure of Tayac, I was soon able to proceed with a regular and systematic 

 exhumation of the sepulture and its approaches. 



First of all it was necessary to support the vault of the Shelter or Cave by a 

 pillar ; for a deep crack threatened its fall, or at least its giving way (see figs. 40, 

 41, and 42). In digging a hole for the base of this pillar (Y), we were able to 

 determine the succession of four black beds of ashes, one on another, the lowest 

 of which contained the stump of the tusk of an Elephant (figs. 41 and 42, ) ; and 

 this, although damaged by the pickaxe, was of sufficient interest to induce the 

 Rev. P. Sanna Solaro, present at the discovery, to help me in disengaging it from 

 the matrix. The pillar having been set up, we methodically excavated the 

 several beds, one by one; and thus determined very exactly their nature, 

 relations, and contents. As, however, in these respects they present a perfect 

 analogy among themselves, excepting that they increase in thickness from below 

 upwards, I shall very briefly describe them in the order of their formation. 



The Cave of Cro-Magnon is formed by a projecting ledge of Cretaceous Lime- 

 stone* (rich with fossil Corals and Polyzoans), having a thickness of 8 metres 

 and a length of about 17 metres (figs. 38, 39, 40, and 41, P). The bed which 

 it overlies, and the destruction of which has given rise to the Cave, abounds 

 with Rhynchonella vespertilio, which is a type fossil, fixing the geological horizon. 

 The debris of this marly and micaceous limestone had accumulated on the original 



* See also the Map, page 29, where this limestone is marked K 1. 



