under a Skull of the Extinct Rhinoceros hemitoechus. '249 



VElephas antiquus dans les cavernes de France ; mais en Angle- 

 terre, dans la presqu'ile de Gower (pays de Galles), il a ete 

 trouv^, dans plusieurs cavernes explorees par le docteur Falco- 

 ner et le colonel Wood. II y ^tait associe avec un rhinoceros 

 {R. hemitoechus, Falc.) d'espece egalement ancienne; et, dans la 

 caveme de Long Hole, plusieurs silex taiUes ont 4t4 rencontres 

 sous une tete de ce dernier rhinoceros "*. 



As his authority for the statement contained in the two last 

 lines of the foregoing extract, given in italics, M. Lartet cites Sir 

 Charles Lyell {' Antiquity of Man,' 3rd edit.. Appendix, p. 513, 

 1861') J and on referring to that work, I find the following sen- 

 tence : — " In Bosco's Den no human bones or implements were 

 discovered ; but in the neighbouring cave, called Long Hole, 

 where the same zealous explorer " (Colonel Wood) " detected 

 flint knives beneath the skull of Rhinoceros hemitoechus, several 

 fossil bones have been obtained which exhibit transverse and 

 other cuts like those which M. Desnoyers would ascribe to 

 human handiwork" {op. cit. p. 514). 



M. Lartet's great eminence as a palseontologist, and the leading 

 share which he has had in bringing to light and investigating, with 

 such truth and sagacity, the evidence respecting the antiquity of 

 human relics in France, are calculated to give weight and cur- 

 rency to any statement adopted on trust and repeated by him with- 

 out verification. In this instance he has been gravely misled by 

 the authority on which he relied. No skull of Rhinoceros hemi' 

 taechus above flint knives was ever discovered by my friend and 

 fellow-labourer Colonel Wood in ' Long Hole ' cave, nor was any 

 skull of that extinct species ever found in it. The flint imple- 

 ments which he found there, together with the immediately 

 associated fossil remains, were at the time transmitted to me for 

 investigation, and out of my hands they have never passed. They 

 have been shown by me to several men of science, including 

 Sir Charles Lyell. A detached shell of a milk molar of Rhinoceros 

 hemitoechus was among the number : hence, probably, the origin 

 of the assertion about the skull, — a small milk molar having 

 been exalted into a skull found above flint implements, doubtless 

 from inadvertence, misconception, or error of recollection. 



The evidence of man having been a cotemporary of the earliest 

 of the extinct mammals of the Quartemary period is sufficiently 

 beset with difficulties, without being further perplexed by sup- 

 posititious facts or exaggerated statements. Hence the necessity 

 of this correction. 



21 Park Crescent, Portland Place, 

 June 28, 1864. 



♦ Revue Archeolo^que, 1864, " Sur des figures d'Animaux grav^ ou 

 icalpt^," &c. p. 2(S. Separate edition, " Cavernes du Perigord," p. 35. 



