Literary Notices. 315 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Reliqule AquitanicL2E : being Contributions to tbe Archaeology and 

 Palaeontology of Perigord, and of the adjoining Provinces of 

 Southern France. By Edward Lartet and Henkt Christy. Part 

 III. (Bailliere.) — The present part of this important and remarkably 

 handsome work, commences by describing the mode in which the 

 Indians of California fashion their stone arrow-heads ; and cites from 

 Sir. E. Belcher the way in which the Esquimaux of Cape Lisburne 

 manage, by pressing the hard points of reindeer-horn upon frac- 

 tured pieces of chert, to produce saw-like edges, which it might be 

 supposed required the agency of metallic tools. The caves of 

 Dordogne then form the subject of remark, and it is stated that, 

 besides ossiferous deposits which may have resulted from water 

 action, others must have been accumulated when the caves were 

 the abodes of wild animals or of men. " Some have been the resorts 

 of beasts alone, and some only inhabited by men. In the compara- 

 tively few in which they have been tenanted by both, there are 

 usually indications that the earlier occupancy has not been that of 

 man." " It is especially in the valley of the Vezere, a tributary of 

 the Dordogne, which is an affluent of the Garonne, that these 

 remains are in great abundance, and are indisputably contempo- 

 raneous with the remains of animals extinct in that country before 

 history or tradition." The cave deposits are composed of broken 

 bones, pebbles, nodules, and chips of flint of various sizes, inter- 

 mixed with charcoal in dust and in small fragments. Besides these, 

 a multitude of implements of deer-horn have been discovered, some 

 finished, and others in process of formation. " These consist of 

 square chisel-shaped implements ; round, sharp-pointed, awl-like 

 tools, some of which may have also served as the spikes of fish- 

 hooks; harpoon-shaped lance-heads, plain or barbed; arrow-heads 

 with many and sometimes double barbs, cut with wonderful vigour ; 

 and lastly, eyed needles of compact bone, finely pointed, polished, and 

 drilled with round eyes, so small and regular that some of the most 

 assured and acute believers in all other findings, might well doubt 

 whether, indeed, they could have been drilled with stone, until their 

 actual repetition, with the very stone implements found with them, 

 has dispelled their honest doubts. More than this, all but two of 

 the many deposits explored, have given moi-e or less examples of 

 ornamented work ; and three of them (Les Eyzies, Laugerie Basse, 

 and La Madeleine) drawings and sculptures of various animals, 

 perfectly recognizable as such." Thus it appears that these early 

 inhabitants of France were considerably removed above what is 

 ordinarily meant by the savage state. They had, as the remains 

 clearly show, abundance and variety of food, they could make im- 

 plements requiring considerable skill, and they amused themselves 

 with rude, though by no means despicable works of art. To esti- 

 mate the date of their existence is extremely difficult, and indeed 

 sufficient means for estimating the precise geological time, and con- 

 verting that into common time, do not exist. Not only have animals 



