jAJsruAEY 25, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



137 



forms a part of the famous Christy collec- 

 tion in the British Museum. Very few 

 mortars have been found in neighboring 

 stations. Besides, ochre pencils exactly like 

 the one from Font-de-Gaume have been 

 found in the rock shelter of Les Eyzies. 

 Sometimes a flat piece of ochre is cut in 

 the form of a triangle, each angle serving 

 in turn as a pencil point. Some of these 

 pencils are perforated to be suspended, 

 and might well be supposed to form a part 

 of the outfit of the artists who drew in 

 color figures such as that of the two-horned 

 rhinoceros previously mentioned. 



It may be that the artists who made their 

 home at Les Eyzies decorated its walls also. 

 Exposure would have obliterated these 

 decorations long ago. Lucky it was for 

 present-day lovers of art and archeology 

 that their troglodyte forebears had the 

 good sense to seek at Pont-de-Gaume a 

 more permanent gallery for their master- 

 pieces. 



In addition to the four caverns with wall 

 engravings and paintings in the Vezere 

 valley group, one other is now being ex- 

 plored in the Dordogne, viz., the cavern of 

 La Mairie et Teyjat. This large cavern is 

 only two hundred meters distant from the 

 rock shelter of Mege, discovered in 1903 by 

 M. Bourrinet. In the cavern of La Mairie 

 the floor deposits may be separated into two 

 industry -bearing layers. The upper one of 

 these contains the same industry as the 

 single layer in the adjacent rock shelter of 

 Mege, except that the latter has furnished 

 archeological material in greater quantities 

 than were found in the deposits of the cav- 

 ern. The relative positions of the engra- 

 vings on the cavern walls and the upper 

 layer of floor deposits prove that both be- 

 long to the same epoch (Magdalenian). It 

 is also interesting to note that while bones 

 of the reindeer abound in the rock shelter 

 of Mege, representations of this animal pre- 



dominate among the mural engravings in 

 La Mairie cavern. 



Besides the cavern of Chabot, at Aigueze 

 and of Pair-non-Pair, already mentioned, 

 other decorated French caverns explored 

 to date are: Le Figuier (Ardeche) across 

 the river from Chabot, La Greze and Mar- 

 soulas (Haute-Garonne). 



Of caverns with paleolithic mural decora- 

 tions outside of France, thus far reported, 

 one is in Italy and four are in Spain. The 

 most important cavern in the Spanish 

 group is that of Altamira in the north 

 coast province of Santander, previously 

 mentioned as being the one in which the 

 discovery of mural flgures first took place. 

 The genuineness of these figures would have 

 continued to remain in doubt had it not 

 been for similar subsequent discoveries else- 

 where. 



M. Emile Cartailhae and the Abbe H. 

 Breuil have recently studied with great 

 care the wall paintings and engravings at 

 Altamira. The cavern is a series of 

 large chambers connected by passageways. 

 There is no evidence of its having been 

 occupied by either man or beast since the 

 close of the Quaternary, at which time the 

 entrance was completely closed by a fall of 

 earth and stones. 



A second, recent fall has afforded a new 

 opening to the cavern, reached by clamber- 

 ing over the debris that closed the original 

 entrance. The first chamber is divided by 

 means of a mass of fallen stones. The one 

 on the left is forty meters long by twenty 

 meters wide. The one on the right is a 

 sort of corridor connecting with other 

 chambers. Industrial remains of the floor 

 deposits are confined to the entry and the 

 chamber on the left. There is evidence 

 that the cave bear had occupied the cavern 

 before man took possession. Figures, en- 

 graved or painted, are found on the walls 

 of every part of the cavern, especially on 



