I860.] IAKTET FOSSIL IXCISED BOXES. 473 



which appears to me to justify in this respect the opinion put forth 

 by Dr. Hibbert, and since then accepted by other palaeontologists, 

 except Professor Owen, who, speaking of the Megaceros of the Bri- 

 tish Isles, entirely dissents from the opinion of Dr. Hibbert. All 

 the remains of that animal found on this side of the Channel, which 

 I have examined, belong to deposits of greater antiquity than that of 

 the peat-bogs. 



M. Delesse has shown you fragments of bone that have been sawn, 

 which he recently obtained from a deposit in the neighbourhood of 

 Paris, where he had previously collected remains of the Beaver, the Ox, 

 and the Horse. From an examination of these fragments, 1 have 

 Batisfied myself, by experiments on recent bones, that the action of 

 a metallic saw would not produce the transversally striated plane of 

 section which you must have observed on those ancient bones collected 

 by M. Delesse ; but I have obtained analogoxis results by cmplo)nng 

 as a saw those Hint knives, or splinters with a sharp chisel-edge, found 

 in the sands of Abbeville. 



If, therefore, the presence of worked flints in the diluvial banks of 

 the Somme, long since brought to light by M. Boucher de Perthes, 

 and more recently confirmed by the rigorous verifications of several 

 of your learned fellow-countrymen, have established the certainty of 

 the existence of Man at the time when those ancient erratic deposits 

 were formed, the traces of an intentional operation on the bones of 

 the Rhinoceros, the Aurochs, the Megaceros, the Cervus Somonensis, 

 be., supply equally the inductive demonstration of the contempora- 

 neity of those species with the human race. 



It is true that certain of those species, the Cervus daphus of 

 Linnaeus (the same as your Bed-deer or Stag) and the Aurochs, are 

 still represented in existing nature : but although it be exactly the 

 bones of the Aurochs which exhibit the most evident proof of human 

 action, the fad is not of less value as regards the relative antiquity; 

 for the remains of the Aurochs have been found associated in the 

 same beds with those of Elephas and Megaceros, not, as 1 have already 

 said, by the effect of b remaniement, but in an original inhumation. 

 Moreover, fossil remains of the sane Aurochs have been found in 

 England, in Prance, and in Italy, in proglacia] deposits (that is, 

 in deposits anterior to the mosl ancienl pleistocene formations im- 

 bedding bones of Elephas pritnigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus), I 

 would add. that th>' more rigorous observation of farts tends dearly 

 to demonstrate that a great proportion "four living Ifammifers have 

 been contemporaneous with those two great extincl spedes, the firsl 

 appearance of which in Western Europe must have been preceded by 

 that of several of our still existing quadrupeds. 



figured. Thaw ii another oil itum, and wine oonoluaoni i'it«:- 

 page 7 12 of the Mine work. 



Wiih regard to 8. Munater, 1 

 fig. 2. of hu I nphiaUnnref t you will find hi* 



and interpret I bj Dr I! : '' rl in the ' Edinburgh ' 

 roL ii. p. .'i<>7. Dr. Eibberi haa likenriae give M 



etidentfj h il i- ; : «d,a« admit! 



Vol.. \\ i.— i\i;i I. 2 II 



