DESNOYERS COEXISTENCE OF MAN WITH ELEPHAS MERIDIONALIS. 19 



rence of bones which appear to have been split open for the purpose 

 of extracting the marrow, the author remarks that several bones 

 of Hippopotamus, especially a metatarsus, are finely furrowed in 

 every direction by very distinct strise, which he is disposed to refer 

 less to the action of man than to another cause ; he then gives his 

 reason for believing them to have been produced by the action of 

 blocks of ice transporting grains of sand. He sums up the result of 

 his observations as follows : — 



1. Some fossil bones of several animals (see p. 18), considered as 

 characteristic of the Upper Tertiary rocks or Pliocene, and discovered 

 in an undisturbed deposit of that geological period, bear numerous 

 and incontestable traces of strise and of gashes. 



2. These notches and these striaB are perfectly analogous to those 

 which have been observed upon fossil bones of newer species of 

 Mammalia ; namely, the extinct species accompanying the ElepJtas 

 primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhwus, Hyaena speloza, &c, and those 

 that are now living, such as the Reindeer, several Deer, and the 

 Aurochs, found in the ossiferous caverns and in the Drift. Similar 

 appearances have also been recognized upon numerous bones of living 

 species collected in Gallic, Gallo-Roman, Breton, and Germanic 

 tombs. 



3. The marks upon the most ancient bones appear to have, in great 

 part, the same origin as those of the more modern, and cannot, there- 

 fore, be attributed to any other cause than the hand of man. 



4. Some other strise — liner, rectilinear, and crossing one another — 

 are also seen in great number upon the bones from the Pliocene beds 

 of the environs of Chartres, and other localities, and appear to be 

 analogous to those which have been observed upon the pebbles and 

 blocks which have been striated, scratched, and polished by glaciers. 

 The motion due to torrential waters would with difficulty produce a 

 similar result. 



5. The beds of Saint-Prest, unanimously recognized as Upper 

 Tertiary, or Pliocene, and certainly as anterior to all the Quaternary 

 deposits which contain Elephas primigenius, include numerous bones 

 of Elephas meridionalis, and of the greater number of the large 

 Mammalia characteristic of the Upper Tertiaries ; upon these bones 

 both kinds of notches and strise may be observed. 



6. Prom these facts it seems possible to conclude, with a very 

 great appearance of probability, until some other more satisfactory 

 explanation better elucidates this double phenomenon, that man 

 lived upon the soil of Prance before the great and first Glacial period 

 — at the same time as the Elephas meridionalis and the other Pliocene 

 species of the Yal d' Arno, in Tuscany ; and that he was contemporary 

 with these large animals, anterior to the epoch of the Elephas 

 primigenius and the other Mammals whose bones have been found 

 mixed with the remains of man in the gravels, or Quaternary beds of 

 the great valleys, and in the caverns. 



7. Finally, the beds of Saint-Prest furnish, as yet, the most ancient 

 example in Europe of the coexistence of man with extinct animals. 



[H.M.J.] 



p2 



