A HEARTH OF THE POLISHED STONE AGE.* 
Ox the summit of a steep hill between the valley of the Bas 
Roches and that of the Dheune, overlooking the immense plain of 
the Saône, and commanding a view of the Jura, the Alps, and the 
mountains of the Maconnais and the Morvan, and surrounded by 
numerous other camps, is the camp of Chassey, which occupies an 
area of about eight hundred yards in length by a breadth varying 
from about one hundred to two hundred yards. So commanding 
and important a spot was not only taken possession of by the 
Romans for a castellum, and by the Gauls for an oppidum, but was 
also occupied in prehistoric times. Several collections of antiqui- 
ties belonging to different periods have been formed upon the 
spot, but it was reserved for M. Perrault to make the interesting 
discovery which he has recorded in so simple yet so complete 4 
manner in the pages now before us. A terrace, sheltered by rocks 
from the north and east winds and facing the morning sun, seemed 
to him well adapted for early habitations, while a depression in 
the ground in front proved, on examination, to contain the re- 
mains of a large hearth, or it might be termed kitchen, and here 
he instituted excavations. ` 
Beneath a few inches of soil he found a bed rather more than 
two feet in thickness, made up of ashes, bones, and pottery, 
and containing numerous instruments of various kinds. The 
whole reposed on a platform of rough slabs of stone, blackened 
like the soil beneath them by the action of fire. Not a trace of 
metal was discovered, and in describing the objects found, M. Per- 
rault divides them into (1) instruments of stone, (2) those of 
bone, and (3) pottery. 
Exclusive of fragments, some one hundred and fifty stone in- 
struments were found, consisting for the most part of hatchets, 
arrowheads, flakes, borers, scrapers, hammers, mealing stones and 
polishing stones. No less than eight perfect stone hatchets 
were found, as well as fourteen broken, and of those that were 
(ae 
* We copy from Nature of Jan. 19th the following interesting summary of @ recent 
work by Ernest Perrault, entitled “Note sur un Foyer de l’Age de la Pierre polie de- 
couvert au Camp de Chassey en Septembre, 1869.” 1870. 4to. pp. 32, and 8 plates. 
London: Williams and Norgate. 4 
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