272 PALAEONTOLOGY. 



action of carbonic acid upon bones, permit the recognition of traces of 

 the fauna of the ancient world. Thus at Vallieres (Loir-et-Cher) in 

 a cave nearly dried up, as well as in an osseous breccia which sur- 

 rounds it, filling fissures of cretaceous rocks, there have been found 

 bones of the Hyaena Spelaea, the Bhinoceros TichorhinuSf the Cervus 

 MegaceroSf the Bos Primigenius, the Eq^uus Adamiticus, &c., accom- 

 panied by hatchets analogous to the specimens collected in the Valley 

 <sf the Somme.* 



Thrice during the year 1863 I have extended my investigations 

 amer the departments of Dordogne and Charento ; at Bourdeille, 

 iSayac and Tursac, in the former of these departments j at Combe-de- 

 lEoUand, La Roche-Andry, Montgaudier, and La Chaise, in the latter. 



In most of these localities we can prove the existence of hearth- 

 stones, where upon layers of calcareous formations (oolitic or creta- 

 ceous) have been placed, as better calculated to resist the action of 

 lieat, various chrystalline rocks foreign to the country. Upon these 

 liearth-stones we find mixed with cinders and fragments of coal, or 

 even imbedded in a pretty tough conglomerate, thousands of flint 

 instruments, and a multitude of articles worked in bone, needles of 

 great fineness artistically bored, awls, fish-hooks, barbed arrows, 

 spoons which from their shape might have served for the extraction 

 of marrow, daggers manufactured from the horns of the reindeer, 

 ornaments in intaglio or worked in relief upon the bones. Nay, 

 further, the representation of the stag and the hind, the dog and the 

 ox, an ottei*or a beaver, of an animal with a thick mane wanting the 

 head, and lastly of many birds and fish. A reindeer's head projects 

 from the handle of a dagger ; thus we recognize the first rudimentary 

 -attempts at carving — I would even venture to add, at statuary. The 

 excavations of Tayac have furnished me with some fragments of the 

 molars and tusks of the elephant, and I think we must assign to the 

 spoils of this monster the reproduction of a human type — the statuette 

 •lof a woman. 



No doubt two observers of the highest authority will favor the 

 learned world with their fruitful discoveries. I shall not anticipate 

 the valuable communications of Mr. Christy of London, and M. 

 Lartet, the kind guide of my earliest palaeontological studies, the 



* I may here observe that the flint-knives of Valliferes are more highly finished, and dis- 

 play more after-touch than those which, in the lower bed of the cave of Arcy, are associated 

 'With the fauna of extinct species. 



