634 Note on the Fossil Human Bones, (Dec. 
the equal change which the bones have undergone : their mode of 
deposit: the variety of species in some of the animals, which denotes 
domesticity ; and the occurrence of extinct species bearing the marks 
of cutting instruments. The problem being thus resolved, it follows 
that man must also be included among the fossil species, or rather that 
the sudden transition from one condition of being to another must be 
disallowed, and that the same gradual alteration of species, already so 
fully developed by M. Desnayes in his comparison of the fossil shells 
of the different periods of the tertiary formations, must be extended to 
animals, and perchance to man himself: that, in fact, the batrier of fossil 
and non-fossil must henceforth be a distinction of convenience only, to 
separate such remains as may be found buried in the regular geological 
strata, from those of more modern or accidental inhumation. 
M. Dzesnorers however suggests that these bones may be compara- 
tively modern, and that they may belong to the primitive Gauls, who 
lived in caverns. This opinion accords well enough with the circumstances 
of the cavern at Miallet, in which M. Terssier found little figures, 
fragments of jars, bracelets, &c. but it will not at all apply to the other 
localities described, and in which the mixture of bones is so decided. 
Great light is thrown by these discoveries on the before ill-explain- 
ed fact of the occurrence of human bones in the breccias of Cagliari, 
Nice, Gibraltar, and Tripoli, which contain marine shells, and seem to 
prove that the level of the sea was once 150 feet higher than at present : 
the caves generally betoken an equal height of the running streams 
which are supposed to have gradually silted up the caverns. 
The shell deposit of Cape St. Hospice, near Nice, also contains bro- 
ken pottery, and the same has been observed in the bone-breccias of 
Dalmatia and Syria, which contain human bones, as does the ossiferous 
sand of Bades near Vienna. 
M. Bour’ rightly observes that such facts are of too frequent occur- 
rence to allow of explanation on the ground of any accidental intro- 
duction during the period to which history extends. They all testify 
a lowering of the ocean level with respect to the land, caused by the 
upheavement of the latter, and thus render it evident, that these changes 
have been in action subsequent to the existence of man on the globe. 
M. Tournat and other French naturalists, further suppose that 
several races of men have successively had possession of our continents. 
The form of the skulls found at Vienna is stated to approach to the 
African or Negro type. Those discovered in the fluviatile marl of the 
valley of the Rhine and Danube exhibit a close resemblance to the heads 
of the Karaibs or those of the ancient inhabitants of Peru and Chili. It 
