472 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 16, 



earliest time, when the people had learned to fix, by a much more 

 difficult process, to flints and other rocks intentional forms so well 

 defined. 



Among the bones with incisions obtained from the sands of Abbe- 

 ville, there is a large antler of an extinct Stag, referred to the Cervus 

 JSomonensis, or the grand Bairn de la Somme of Cuvier, together with 

 several horns of our common Deer, which I was not able to show you. 

 The bones of the Rhinoceros (JRh. tichorhinus) which I laid before 

 you were found at Menchecourt, a suburb of Abbeville, where there 

 are gravel-pits which formerly afforded many fossil bones of Elephants, 

 &c, and where M. Boucher de Perthes, at a later period, obtained the 

 flints worked by human hands. The incisions that may be observed 

 on those bones are neither so deep, nor do they afford evidence so 

 striking, as those in the bones of the Aurochs from the Canal de 

 l'Oureq ; but the shallow cuts and the incisions of the bony surfaces 

 which may be observed upon them, especially in the articulations, have 

 in my eyes not less value ; for I have satisfied myself, by comparative 

 trials on homologous portions of existing animals, that incisions pre- 

 senting such appearances could only be made in fresh bones still 

 retaining their cartilage. As to the fragment of the horn of the 

 Megaceros Hibernicus, which Cuvier had received from England with- 

 out any indication as to where it came from, you may have observed 

 that it bears the marks of several blows, which have made incisions of 

 a depth that it would be impossible to produce in the present state of 

 mineralization of that fragment : further, the blow which detached 

 that piece from the rest of the horn must have been given before 

 that immersion in the sea which caused its fossilized condition ; for 

 in the internal cavity of this fragment there was found the valve of 

 an Anomia (preserved with the specimen), which could not have found 

 its way there except at the place of fracture. I have observed very 

 significant marks, evidently produced by a sharp tool, on the horn of 

 a young Megaceros which the late M . Alcide d'Orbigny had received 

 from Ireland some years ago. 



I would call to your recollection that the Rev. John Cumming, in 

 his geological description of the Isle of Man (Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geological Society, vol. ii. p. 345), notices the occurrence of the 

 remains of the Megaceros imbedded in blue marl " with implements 

 of human art and industry, though of an uncouth and ancient cha- 

 racter ; " and in a note at the foot of page 344, aUuding to a submarine 

 forest, to which he is inchned to assign a more ancient date, he says, 

 " It is singular that the trunk of an oak tree, which has been removed 

 from the submerged forest at Strandhall, exhibits upon its surface 

 the marks of a hatchet." With regard to the historical existence of 

 the Megaceros, after referring to what is to be found in the works of 

 Oppian, of Julius Capitolinus, and S. Miinster*, I have found nothing 



* For the text of Oppian I have consulted the French translation of the poem 

 " dela Chasse " by Belin de Ballu (1787), chant second, p. 42. Julius Capitolinus 

 is quoted by Aldrovandus, ' de Q.uadrupedibus bisulcis,' lib. i. c. xxviii. p. 857. 

 Aldrovandus explains why he has changed his opinions after having received 

 from an English physician the head of {Megaceros) Euryceros, which he has 



