WITH CERTAIN EXTINCT QUADRUPEDS. 379 
incisions made by a sharp instrument, which he had recently dis- 
covered in the neighbourhood of Paris. He presented me with one 
of those which he had submitted to the examination of M. Lartet, 
and which I now lay before the Society, together with the following 
copy of anote I received from M. Delesse describing this specimen :— 
*T send you a fragment of a rib which I recently found at Ver, i 
the department of the Seine et Oise, about nine leagues from Paris, 
at the depth of three métres (nearly ten feet), in a kind of cleft 
filled by the diluvial soil (Je terrain diluvien), occuring with the 
sandstone and sands belonging to the étage denominated les sables de 
Beauchamp. It was associated with divers bones of the Stag and 
Horse, and also of an animal no longer existing in the country, 
namely, the Beaver. I have submitted this fragment to M. Lartet, 
with whose profound scientific attainments you are well acquainted 
but he has not been able to decide whether it belongs to a species of 
quadruped still living, or to one now extinct. But he considers 
this small fragment of a rib very interesting, from its having at one 
extremity traces of a rude operation of sawing, and presenting an 
appearance very different from that which would be produced by a 
metallic blade or by asaw. M. Lartet did not rest satisfied with a 
mere conjecture, but ascertained by experiments on a fresh rib of an 
Ox that a metallic blade produced an uniform and almost a smooth 
cut. Hence he concludes that the rib in question had been sawn by 
flint with a jagged edge. Taking a splinter of flint with a chisel- 
edge from the sands of Abbeville, he easily sawed a fresh rib, but 
always obtained an uneven, irregular cut (des surfaces de resection 
avec reprises nombreuses), such as may be observed on the specimen 
I send you. There is therefore every reason to believe that this rib 
had been sawn by a flint, and it affords proof of Man having lived in 
France at the same time as the Beaver, an animal no longer existing 
with us; and M. Lartet hasthus supplied a new and elegant demonstra- 
tion of the contemporaneity of Man and quadrupeds during the period 
of the Terrains diluviens.” 
SuBsEQUENT ADDITION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL 
Society. 
The day after the above communication was read, on showing the 
fragment of bone given to me by M. Delesse above referred to, it 
was observed that it had a remarkably fresh appearance, that it did 
not adhere (happer) to the tongue as fossil bones usually do, and 
