614 HUMAN JAW AND FLINT-IMPLEMENTS 



the lower fang of a molar of Hyaena spelcea, as proofs of the 

 retention of gelatine in undoubted Quaternary fossils. But 

 the former adhered very strongly to the tongue, having lost 

 a very considerable portion of its gelatine, and the latter, 

 although non-adherent, had altered much in colour and 

 become yellow. Further, they hardly bore on the particular 

 case, inasmuch as the conditions of the beds may have been 

 very different, preservative in their nature in the one, and 

 not so in the other. For it was not shown that the Anvers 

 specimens had been embedded in a deposit charged with 

 mangano-ferruginous oxides. 



The matrix covering the jaw was first examined. It was 

 regarded on the one side as being a natural deposit ; on the 

 other as a coating which had been laid on, or otherwise pro- 

 duced artificially. Besides MM. Delesse and Hebert, M. 

 Delafosse, Professor of Mineralogy, who examined it in the 

 presence of the Conference, expressed his opinion that the 

 coating was natural, indicating that the bone had long been 

 embedded in the matrix. He expressed the same opinion 

 regarding the matrix of some of the flint haches. He ' was 

 shown a kache from Mautort, which had been previously given 

 up as factitious, and pronounced the gangue to be a natural 

 and ancient deposit.' The doubts of the English members, 

 that the coating was artificial, were not shaken by this ver- 

 dict upon the Mautort and other haches detailed in the 

 proces-verbaux, one of them having exhibited in its matrix 

 ' unquestionable fragments of recent vegetable structure.' 

 Chemical analysis, undertaken since the close of the Con- 

 ference, has shown that the matrix of the ' black seam ' and 

 the coating upon the suspected haches and upon the jaw are 

 alike in their composition, although differing quantitatively in 

 the constituents. The English members rested their doubts : 

 1st. Upon the absence of staining by the matrix both upon 

 the haches and upon the jaw. 2nd. On the facility with 

 which the coating upon both was removed by washing. The 

 French members appear to have relied on the presence of 

 occasional brilliant points, upon the granular clusters of 

 ' limonite cle fer,' as indicating a natural origin. 



The jaw was carefully sawn across by Mr. Busk, imme- 

 diately in front of the solitary penidtimate molar, and the 

 section was so conducted as to include vertically a portion of 

 one of the fangs. The specimen consisted of the left ramus, 

 perfectly entire, of a human subject, estimated to have been 

 between 60 and 70 years of age. Although yielded by a bed 

 of flint gravel there was not the slightest appearance of 

 crushing or mark of rolled action, the condyle and thin apex 

 of the coronoid being as perfect as in a recent bone. The 



