188 



FOKEIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



Human remains have been reported at last from the flint-implement- 

 bearing gravel of Abbeville. M. "Boucher de Perthes announced to the 

 Societe Imperial e d'Emulation of Abbeville, of which he is President, on 

 the 16th ult., that on the 28th March last he had found in the bed of argil- 

 laceous black sand in the bank of diluvium at Moulin-Quignon, and ex- 

 tracted himself from the deposit, the moiety of a fossil human jaw, which at 

 the first glance seemed to him to present some difference from the ordinary- 

 human jaw. " This jaw," so runs the extract from the jproces-verhal of the 

 meeting of that Society, printed in the local newspaper ' L'Abbevillois ' of 

 the 18th April, " was at 4*52 metres depth, and almost touching the chalk. 

 At a few centimetres distance, equally embedded in the ' black bed,' was a 

 flint-implement (hache), which M. de Perthes requested M. Oswald 

 Dimpre, who accompanied him, to take out, but he could not do so with- 

 out the aid of a pickaxe ; M. Dimpre, sen., and five other persons were 

 present at M. Boucher de Perthes' discovery, and saw him extract the 

 jaw from the diluvial bed. Examined by Drs. Jules Dubois and Hecquet, 

 and by M. de Yillepoix, pharmacien, — all three members of the Societe 

 d'Emulation, — this jaw was recognized as fossil and very evidently belong- 

 ing to a man, offering at the same time, as M. de Perthes remarked, some 

 differences from the conformation of ordinary man. Since the discovery, 

 the Abbe Bourgeois, Professor of Philosophy and Natural History at the 

 College of Pont-le-Voie, came to Abbeville on the 10th April ; Dr. Car- 

 penter, Vice-President of the Eoyal Society of London, Dr. Felix Gar- 

 rigou, Member of the Geological Society of France, Dr. Falconer, Member 

 of the Eoyal Society of England and Geological Society of London, ar- 

 rived on the 14th ; M. de Quatrefages, Member of the Institute, Professor 

 of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History at Paris, arrived on 

 the 15th, and have unanimously confirmed the opinion of the above mem- 

 bers of the Society of Emulation, and declared that the jaw is fossil and 

 truly that of a man, but that it presents some differences with the present 

 race, as was remarked by Messrs. Jules Dubois and Hecquet, when they 

 were consulted on that point by M. Boucher de Perthes. M. Catel, sur- 

 geon-dentist, made the same statement." 



On the 11th, the diluvial deposit of Moulin-Quignon was visited by the 

 Abbe Bourgeois, and on the 13th, 14th, and 15th by Messrs. Carpenter, 

 Garrigou, Falconer, and Quatrefages, who, after verifying the bed and the 

 place whence M. Boucher de Perthes had extracted the fossil jaw, have 

 admitted that the bed is ancient and not disturbed {remanie), and the 

 fossil origin of the jaw presents no matter of doubt. On the 14th, Dr. 

 Falconer and Dr. Garrigou caused an excavation to be made in the same 

 bed, in search of new bones. Dr. Falconer found and extracted himself, 

 from the bed of black sand, not far from the place where M. de Perthes 

 had found the jaw, and at 4'55 metres in depth, a flint hache neatly manu- 

 factured. M. Brunet, member of the Societe d'Emulation, who had come 

 to inspect the bed, witnessed this extraction. On the 15th, M. de Quatre- 

 fages having wished also to excavate this bed, had the like success as Dr. 

 Falconer, and, pick in hand, brought out two haches reposing on the chalk 

 at nearly five metres depth. Dr. Falconer and M. de Perthes were 

 present. 



M. de Perthes discovered, the same day, in the stratum of yellow sand 

 in the same deposit, at 'd\ metres from the surface, two fragments of bone 

 that Messrs. Falconer and Quatrefages immediately recognized as frag- 

 ments of mammoth tooth {JBlephas primiyenius). M. Boucher de Perthes 



