PALAEONTOLOGY. 275 



having laboriously raised, by means of iron-pincers, the flag-stones 

 belonging to the lower oolite, and sometimes to the coral rag, the 

 excavations change in character, and it is no longer with the 

 reindeer, but with the bear and the hysena, the elephant and the 

 rhinoceros, that I have myself extracted from this lower layer the 

 wrought flints and the fractured bones, which the workmen could 

 not discover in the middle of the moist and sticky substances of 

 clay, in which the flints and bones are imbedded. In presence of 

 these layers, separated by a sinking of the surface, I asked myself 

 whether it was possible to separate chronologically the t^o stages. 

 Does the superposition of the strata in this connection belong to the 

 geological order ? Do not the existence of cinders and coal, and of 

 wrought bones, and the wrought flints accumulated in such numbers 

 in the upper stratum, as well as the scarcity of intact bones, seem 

 to denote here the exclusive intervention of man for the formation 

 of these depositaries as the Jcjcekkenmoeddinger of Norway, and cer- 

 tain accumulations of remains accompanying the lake deposits. Up 

 to the time when the extinct races had seemed confined to the lower 

 stratum, that hypothesis might have been absolutely rejected ; but 

 if, on the one hand, still existing, though migrated, races, are found 

 to belong to both stages, and if, on the other hand, the relics of ex- 

 tinct races are associated with existing species in the bosom of the 

 workshops of primitive human industry, what are we to think of 

 this double association ? 



In any case the artificial, or if you will, the natural layer, where 

 the bones of the reindeer abound, and where hearthstones are met, 

 has preceded one of the convulsions of the globe, as is proved by the 

 presence of numerous angular fragments of the surrounding rocks, and 

 by the rolled pebbles derived from crystalline rocks, mixed into a 

 perfect conglomerate with flint implements and wrought bones. This 

 layer is very different, it may be remarked by the way, from the lake 

 deposits, in which the animal remains without exception belong to the 

 modern and local fauna, which no change in the earth's condition 

 warrants our separating from our own epoch. I should note here the 

 discovery of crude metals associated with the bones of the caverns. 

 The negative fact of their absence in the bosom of the drift layers had 

 led to the a priori admission that the men of these remote times were 

 completely ignorant of their use, when they were perhaps only de- 

 prived of the means of using them, although they had preserved the 



