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LXV. Notices respecting New Boohs. 



1 Reliquice Aquitanicce,' being contributions to the Archaeology and 

 Pcdceontology of Perigord, <Sfc. By Edouard Lartet and Henry 

 Christy. Edited by Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S. 

 4to, Illustrated, 1865-75. Williams and Norgate, Loudon. 



f\Y the many discoveries relating to Archaic man and his sur- 

 ^ roundings which have of late years been made and described, 

 none have been more fully and carefully examined than the Tro- 

 glodytic relics from the caves in the valley of the Dordogne. In 

 none have the finds been more complete, more varied, or more 

 interesting ; in none has the enthusiastic scientific interest of an 

 able series of observers been more fully evidenced. 



The work has passed through many hands. First, it was the 

 intention of the late Mr. Henry Christy, with the hearty coopera- 

 tion of M. Edouard Lartet, to produce a work descriptive of the 

 results of their personal labours, which should be useful to the 

 Anthropologist and Archaeologist alike. But the former gentle- 

 man's lamented death hindered the continued exhaustive examina- 

 tion of the caves ; and though his executors were fully desirous of 

 carrying out his wishes in the question, still his loss to some ex- 

 tent prevented the work reaching those dimensions which its ori- 

 ginal promoter ardently desired. Nor was this the only check the 

 history received. M. Edouard Lartet, on whom the prosecution 

 of the work now mainly devolved, passed away, and with him the 

 opportunity for the completion of a careful description of the mam- 

 malian remains of which he was so able a judge. 



Notwithstanding these unavoidable drawbacks, the work was 

 continued by Professor T. Rupert Jones, E.R.S., to whose care- 

 ful and painstaking editing the completion of Mr. Christy's plan 

 is due ; and the book as it stands is a noble monument of MM. 

 Christy and Lartet. Its general arrangement, whereby not merely 

 the relics of the Cave Eolk have been described, but their uses 

 have been suggested, comparisons made with the habits and cus- 

 toms of known savage races, and monographs by able hands added 

 when necessary, making the history of these singular people as 

 complete as conjecture based on sound reasoning could make it. 



The ancient province of Aquitania, originally lying between the 

 G-aronne, the sea, and the Pyrenees, was finally extended to the 

 Loire, and subdivided into three districts, with Avaricum (Bourges), 

 Burdigala (Bordeaux), and Elusa (Eauze) as their capitals. 



The explorations examined in the book refer to only a portion of 

 this area, viz. that part of Perigord in which lies the department 

 of Dordogne. 



Following the railway from Orleans, through Limoges and Peri- 

 gueux, the valley of the Vezere, a tributary of the Dordogne, which 

 again is an affluent of the Graronne on its right bank, is finally 

 reached ; and here the hitherto undulating country undergoes a 

 mailed change. The valley is bounded by steep escarpments, in 



