THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 75 



varieties of the species, since they could not have been subjected to 

 human influence. * 



I beg to be clearly understood, when I say that human bones have 

 never been found amongst fossils, to mean fossils properly so called, 

 or, in other words, in the regular layers of the surface of the earth ; 

 for in turf bogs, in alluvial deposites, as well as in burial grounds, we 

 can as easily disinter human bones, as bones of horses or other common 

 animals : they may also be found in the clefts of rocks and in grottos, 

 where the stalactites will have congealed over them ; but in the beds 

 which contain the ancient races, amongst the palseotheria, and even 

 amongst elephants and rhinoceroses, not a particle of human bone has 

 ever been discovered. Many of the workmen in the gypsum quarries, 

 near Paris, think that the bones with which they abound are human ; 

 but as I have seen many thousands of these bones, I may be allowed to 

 assert that they have never produced a single bone that ever formed 

 a part of the human frame. I have examined at Pavia the piles of 

 bones collected from the isle of Cerigo by Spallanzani, and, in defiance 

 of the assertion of this celebrated observer, I affirm, in like manner, 

 that there is not one which can be proved to be human, Scheuchzer's 

 homo diluvii testis has been placed since my first edition with its real 

 genus, that of the salamanders ; and in an examination which I have 

 been since enabled to make at Haarlem, through the kindness of M. 

 Van Marum, who allowed me to uncover the parts concealed in the 

 stone, I have substantiated satisfactorily what I before asserted. We 

 see amongst the bones found at Cronstadt, the fragment of a jaw, and 

 some articles of human manufacture ; but we know that the ground 

 was dug up without care, and that no observation was made of the 

 various depths at which each relic was discovered. Besides, in every 

 instance, the fragments said to be human have been found on examina- 

 tion to be those of some animal, whether they have been examined 

 themselves, or by figures of them. 



Very lately a pretended discovery was made at Marseilles, in a 

 quarry, for a long time neglected * ; but they only proved to be marine 

 productions (tuyaux metritis') f . The real human bones were carcases 

 fallen into clefts of the rock, or left in ancient galleries of mines, or 

 become incrusted ; and I extend this assertion even to the human 

 skeletons discovered at Guadeloupe J in a rock formed of a collection 

 of madrepores cast up by the sea and united by water strongly imbued 



* See le Journal <le Marseilles et des Bouclies du Rhone, des 27 Sep. 25 Oct. and 

 lerNov. 1820. 



-f- I am convinced of this by the drawings sent by M. Cottard, Professor at the 

 College of Marseilles. 



I Vide Plate, 



