634 tfote 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. Deshayes 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 barrier 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. Desnoyers 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. Teissier 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, a3 does the ossiferous 

 sand of Bades near Vienna. 



M. Boue' 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. Tournal 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 



