LECTURE X. 279 



jaw found at Moulin-Quignon has been analysed. I find, with 

 Bolicher de Perthes, that this analysis can afford no absolute 

 solution, but I also share the opinion of the English savants, 

 that the analysis of a bone, found in a doubtful position, is 

 essential. The natural chronometer, such as the D lines, the 

 river-deltas, and the waterfalls, yield no absolute measures. 

 The disappearance of the animal matter of a bone, is in itself 

 a kind of natural chronometer, which, though it must be 

 reduced to its fair value, is not to be neglected. I should be 

 glad to see the jaw of Moulin-Quignon chemically compared, 

 not only with fossil bones from the real diluvium, but with 

 human bones, extracted from Gaelic or Gallo-Roman graves, 

 and also with bones preserved in the catacombs of Paris." 



Before proceeding further, I beg to offer a few remarks. As 

 late as in the month of May, Elie de Beaumont asserted the 

 synchronism of the peat and the gravel bank of Moulin-Qui- 

 gnon, and supported his view by the circumstance that human 

 bones, wood, horn, stone, bronze, and iron implements have all 

 been found in the peat. But, it seems, in the month of August, 

 Moulin-Quignon becomes considerably older, but still remains 

 in the same epoch, being thrust back to its beginning, the stone 

 period, whilst the peat is advanced to the Eoman period. It 

 would be just the same to assert that Homer and King Otto 

 were contemporaries because they belong to the same epoch, 

 namely, the historical period of the Greeks. 



EHe de Beaumont goes further. Moulin-Quignon is formed 

 by still acting forces ; the Alpine diluvium, on the contrary, is 

 formed by other causes which momentarily interrupted the 

 forces still acting in nature. Here is the rub. The present 

 theory is that the diluvial period was of a very lengthened 

 duration, and also that the present forces, glaciers, and waters, 

 were in continued action, and that the diluvial period merged 

 into the present without any perceptible interruption, and that, 

 as we have shewn, the extinct animals died off very gradually, or 

 retired, or were transformed into present species. The whole 

 theory of Elie de Beaumont, regarding the Alpine diluvium, is 

 founded upon an error of fact. 



He has mistaken beds of Nagelfluhe (conglomerate of the 



