6*0 WORKS OF ART BY 



curious object is the first digital phalanx of a ruminant, 

 drilled to a certain depth by a smooth cylindrical bore on its 

 lower surface near the expanded upper articulation. This is 

 supposed to have been a -whistle or call, and a shrill sound is 

 yielded on applying it to the lower lip and blowing into it. 

 Three of these whistle phalanges are of reindeer, one of 

 chamois. One relic of surpassing interest consists of the 

 himbar vertebra of a reindeer, pierced through and through 

 by a flint weapon, which still remains embedded in the bone, 

 fixed by calcareous incrustation. This is an object of great 

 significance and extreme rarity. Human bones, although 

 found, were very scarce ; but M. Lartet has refrained from 

 alluding to them, with a reserve the reason of which is in- 

 dicated by M. Milne-Edwards. In forming an estimate of the 

 value of the relics of art, the reader will bear in mind that 

 they are the productions of the unpolished and unground 

 ' Stone-period,' the tools employed having been thin chips 

 and delicate flakes of flint. Such at least is the fair inference 

 drawn with our present lights from the negative evidence, 

 not a trace of metal in any shape having been met with in 

 the Dordogne caves. But if primeval man really had made 

 such progress in the conceptions of art, without having yet 

 attained the knowledge of metals, it will be as curious an 

 anthropological phenomenon as are the art objects them- 

 selves, which express that degree of luxury which ease, 

 leisure, and comfort beget. Reindeer's horn is notoriously 

 the most worthless and incompact of cervine antlers ; it is 

 readily whittled by a knife, which is not the case with stag's 

 horns. 



The labours of M. Lartet and Mr. Henry Christy on the 

 Dordogne caves commenced in August 1863. They have 

 been continued ever since, and are still in progress. Valuable 

 and instructive as is the Dordogne collection, it is surpassed 

 in certain respects by another, from the ' Bruniquel Cave,' in 

 the south of France, more recently formed by other observers. 

 The Bruniquel series, it would appear, does not embrace the 

 same range of art, but it is richer in the department of 

 weapons and implements, such as harpoons, spear-heads, &c, 

 which are larger, more numerous, better finished, and in 

 better preservation. These precious materials were offered 

 in succession to the French Government and to the British 

 Museum. ' Perfide Albion ' has got them : they are now in 

 the national collection. The result does infinite credit to the 

 zeal, enterprise, and activity of the administration of the 

 British Museum. But the satisfaction which so valuable an 

 acquisition necessarily excites is not wholly unmixed. The 

 investigation of truth is above and beside national predilec- 



