PLIOCENE BEDS OF ST. PREST. 333 



d' excoriation ou de choc, que les stries trans versales, reeti- 

 lignes, ou sinueuses, ou elliptiques, plus aigues & une ex- 

 tremite qu'a 1'autre, tantot polies, tantot subdivisees en 

 plusieurs stries plus fines occupant la cavite des premieres ; 

 en un mot, que des traces tout a fait analogues a celles que 

 produiraient les outils de silex tranchants a point plus ou 

 moins aigue, a bords plus ou moins denteles, se voyaient sur 

 la plupart de ces ossements." 



Among the bones of the deer were several crania, all of 

 which have been broken in one way, namely, by a violent 

 blow given on the skull between, and at the base of, the horns. 

 M. Steenstrup has noticed fractures of this kind in other 

 less ancient skulls of ruminants, and at the present day 

 some of the Northern tribes treat the skulls of ruminants in 

 the same manner. Through the courtesy of M. Desnoyers, 

 I have had the opportunity of examining some of the 

 scratched bones from Saint Prest. The markings fully bear 

 out the description given by him, and some of them at least 

 appeared to me to be probably of human origin ; at the same 

 time, and in the present state of our knowledge, I am not 

 prepared to say that there is no other manner in which they 

 might have been produced. 



Sir Charles Lyell himself thinks that we may expect to 

 find remains of man in the pliocene strata, but there he 

 draws the line, and says that in miocene time, "had some 

 other rational being, representing man, then flourished, some 

 signs of his existence could hardly have escaped unnoticed, 

 in the shape of implements of stone or metal, more frequent 

 and more durable than the osseous remains of any of the 

 mammalia." 



Without expressing any opinion as to the mental con- 

 dition of our ancestors in the miocene period, it seems to me 

 evident that the argument derived from the absence of 

 human remains, whatever may be its value, is as applicable to 



