274 JOSEPH PEESTWICH, i\R.S., F.G.S., ON A POSSIBLE 



coast of France. Nor are they wanting inland. To take a 

 few of the more ihustrative cases, such for example as those 

 of Nice, Pedemar, Santenay, &c. At all these places the 

 breccia contains the remains of the Mammoth, the Woolli/ 

 JRhiiwceros, and other Quaternary animals. It is a remarkable 

 fact that these fissures are generally situated on isolated hills 

 often of considerable heiglit. In explanation of the presence 

 of the animal remains, it has been suggested that the bones 

 are those of animals which fell into the fissures while still 

 open, or else that they were remains brought together by 

 predaceous animals. But neither of these opinions can be 

 correct, for no sheletori is found entire, very few of the hones 

 are in their relative 2^ositi.on, and none of the bones have been 

 gnawed by carnivova. As M . Gaudry asks in discussing the facts 

 presented, by the fissure on the " Montague de Santenay" — 

 a flat-topped hill near Chalons-sur-Saone — " Why should so 

 many Wolves, Bears, Horses, and Oxen have ascended a hill 

 isolated on all sides ? " The members of the Geological 

 Society of France present at the reunion at which this remark 

 was made, seemed to agree that the animals had met their 

 deatli by drowning, but in what way was left indeterminate.* 

 In most of these cases, those hills rise in the midst of 

 plains or loio grounds. At Nice the hills are 132 and 4oG 

 feet high, at Antibes, 250 feet, and at Cette, which resembles 

 on a small scale the Rock of Gibraltar, the hill rises 355 feet 

 above the sea level. Still more formidable are the hills in- 

 land. Mont Pedemar (Gard) rises to a height of 1,128 feet, 

 whilst Santenay is not less than 1,640 feet high. Among 

 the animal remains found in the Ossiferous Fissures are 

 those of — 



('Felis. f Mammoth. 



I Lynx. . Uno-ulates J ^^l^i^^ceros. 



5 Carnivores-^ Wolf. ^ ungulates -<j ^^^-^^ ^ 



2 Rodents 



oar. 

 Hya?na. [^Horse. 



Bear. fOx. 



Lagomys. 3 Ruminants -^ Deer. 

 Hare. (^Antelope. 



Together with land shells of various living species. The 

 breccia, which is composed of sharjy angular iragmeuts of the 

 local rocks usually imbedded in a matrix of red clay or loam, is 



* Bull. Soc. Gcol. de France, 3rd series, vol. v, j). 681. 



