284 LECTURE X. 



an indefinite, but at all events very remote period. The 

 coloration and tlie incrustation of tlie jaw is accordingly a 

 pure accident, but just on tliat account a guarantee against 

 deception." 



So far Hebert. We learn from it that the Parisian geolo- 

 gist, like ourselves, considers the diluvial period to have been 

 of long duration, during which a number of phenomena suc- 

 ceeded each other, which required long periods of time. There 

 is no question here of supernatural forces no longer acting, 

 which are imagined only by such as cannot convince them- 

 selves that slight forces may, within a proportionate length of 

 time, produce extraordinary effects. The position of the loess 

 immediately upon the grey diluvium does not seem so strange 

 to us ; it may be parallelised with the loess at Cannstadt, so rich 

 in bones of the elephant. 



The following is a report of the concluding part of a Lecture 

 dehvered by M. D^Archiac, Professor of Geology in the Jardin 

 cles Plantes, on the 19th of June. 



" Whatever be the authenticity ascribed to the human jaw 

 of Moulin-Quignon, this discovery possesses only a secondary 

 importance. It is a very simple fact, confirming other proofs, 

 which by their number and universality have a much greater 

 value. If the flint hatchets cannot be ascribed to accident ; if 

 they are really the products of human industry, however rude ; 

 if they must be held to furnish as irrefragable evidence for the 

 existence of man before the formation of these deposits, as the 

 bones of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and 

 of the cave lion, bear and hy^na, furnish for the existence of 

 these animals, it becomes of little impoi-tance whether or not 

 the remains of man are found in these deposits. 



" The question is answered by the fact itself, and it is of 

 secondary importance whether the sand and gravel of Moulin- 

 Quignon are quaternary or not. The essential result, the 

 theoretical point which predominates over all others, namely, 

 the antiquity of man and his co-existence with the extinct 

 species of large mammals, loses nothing of its value, if it be 

 founded only upon the products of human industry, instead 

 of the discovery of human skeletons." 



