THE HUMAN SPECIES. 163 



HUMAN OSSUARIES, WITH BOXES OF EXTINCT ANIMALS. 



Now, the inference which we desire at present to draw from 

 *he foregoing facts, is, solely that the extinction of several lost 

 species of the so-called fossil mammalia was not entire, nor an- 

 terior to the first appearance of man on earth, nor even to his 

 dispersion over the greater part of its surface ; and, therefore, 

 that the asserted alteration in the atmosphere, by the increase 

 of carbonic acid gas, if it did not affect their vitality, must have 

 been shared by man, and, at most, can have operated only by 

 very slow degrees.* In order to show this probable coexisting 

 state, other caverns may be mentioned, which were discovered 

 in the calcareous mountains of Quercy, in the commune of 

 Guienne, district of Figeac, and department du Lot, nearly in 

 the centre of Southern France. They occur, chiefly, on two 

 mountains, on opposite sides of the valley, at an elevation of 

 more than 300 metres (nearly 1000 feet) above the river Scle, 

 and at a locality which appears to be connected with circular 

 and rectilinear fortifications, whereof the ruins bear a resem- 

 blance to what are commonly called Cyclopean walls, such as 

 occur in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Here it is that an 

 unknown people actually did bury, or, at least, made ossuaries 

 of the dead, at a period so remote as in all probability to be 

 anterior to the arrival of the historical Celts, who were them- 

 selves colonists ere the Gauls established their power west of 

 the Rhine. The people in question, though barbarian, was not 

 a mere assemblage of savages. It was stationary, if we can 



* Captain M'Adam, in MS. Lectures, gives the English coal formations 

 alone to have returned, — 



Oxygen, 7,706,700,800 cubic feet. 



Absorbed carbo-uc acid, . . . 3,123,530,809 cubic feet. 



But since the remains of birds, of marsupials, &c, are discovered, belong- 

 ing to the eocene period, there does not seem to exist any reason for pre- 

 suming a marked atmospheric difference could prevail, since the more 

 perfect vertcbratae were in being. 



