PALAEONTOLOGY. 263' 



tegan to inhabit this part of Europe, has made me resolve to submitj 

 for the inspection of the Academy, some of the specimens recently 

 discovered by Messrs. Lartet and Christy, in one of the numerous 

 ossiferous caverns of the centre of France. These objects are remark- 

 able for more than one reason ; and to exemplify their importance, i can- 

 not do better than present here a letter, which has just been addressed 

 to rae by the former of these able and zealous explorers : 



Sir, — In support of the remarks which you hive communicated at 

 one of the late sittings of the Academy, on the subject of animal 

 figures carved on bone, and found in the cavern of Bruniquel, I come 

 in my own name and also in that of Mr. H. Christy, a member of the 

 London Geological Society, to cite to you many other facts of the 

 same nature. For the present we shall confine ourselves wholly to 

 mentioning the discoveries we made during the five last months of the 

 year 1863, in that part of ancient Perigord which now constitutes the 

 district of Sarlat. 



One of the grottoes of that region — that of Eyzies, in the parish of 

 Tayac — has exhibited to us in a conglomerate covering the soil like 

 one continuous floor, an amalgam of broken bones, cinders, fragments 

 of charcoal, and splinters and laminae of flint cut upon different plans, 

 but invariably in definite and oft-repeated forms, accompanied by 

 other utensils and arms worked in the bones or horns of the rein- 

 deer. The whole of this must have been taken up and solidified into 

 a conglomerate in the original condition of deposit, and before any 

 geological change, because series of m.any vertebrae of the reindeer 

 and assemblages of joints in multiple pieces are found remaining in 

 their exact anatomical connections ; the long and hollow marrow- 

 bones are alone detached, and split or broken according to a uniform 

 plan, that is to say, evidently with the intention of thence extracting the 

 marrow. This proposition of ours can, moreover, be confirmed by all 

 competent observers, for we were careful to have this conglomerate 

 extracted in large plates, and after having deposited the finest speci- 

 mens in the Museum of Perigueuxand in the collection of the Jardin 

 des Plantes at Paris, we have .addressed to different French and foreign 

 museums, blocks of sufficient size to enable any one to verify the ex- 

 actness of the observations which we here record. 



This grotto of Eyzies, the muuth of which is 3h metres above the 

 level of the nearest watercourse, the B.nir.e, contained also many 

 pebbles and fragments of rocks foreign to the basin of that little 



