FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



189 



adds, that in a mass of bones that had been found at Menchecourt, where 

 they were found in the early part of April, at 8 metres depth, in the sand 

 quarry {sabliere) of M. Dufour, he had noticed a fragment of human jaw 

 and six teeth that Dr. Falconer declared, pending the more ample exami- 

 nation he will give them, fossil teeth, and certainly human, but belonging 

 to a race more allied to our own than the jaw from Moulin-Quignon. M. 

 de Quatrefages was present. 



M. Boucher de Perthes stated that he would, at a future date, com- 

 municate to the Societc d'Emulation a circumstantial account of his double 

 discovery. 



For the Secretary, E. Deligniekes, 

 Abbeville, April 18th, 1863. Vice- Secretary. 



To this account the writer in the ' Abbevillois ' adds : " We learn that 

 M. Buteaux, aneien mcmbre of the General Council of the Somme and 

 member of the Societe d'Emulation, known by his fine geological works, 

 came yesterday morning to Moulin-Quignon, and having made an exca- 

 vation took himself from the diluvial bed of black sand a flint-implement 

 (hachc), and which was at about 5 metres in depth, near the chalk, and in 

 the seam where M. de Perthes discovered the human fossil. M. E. 

 Delignieres assisted at this digging, as also Mr. Nicholas Brady, of London, 

 who also extracted with his own hand a manufactured flint. M. Boucher 

 de Perthes, in his book on diluvial antiquities, said, in 1847, that some day 

 these antediluvian hatchets, then so rare, and the reality of which some 

 people did not believe, would be found everywhere. This prediction is 

 verified. He added, that it would be the same with, human fossils. We 

 are now brought to believe that in this respect also Mr. de Perthes has 

 rightly predicted. But what has struck us above all is that he equally 

 announced that when they did find this fossil man he would exhibit, like 

 other antediluvian mammifers, some difference of conformation from recent 

 individuals. The form of the jaw of the fossil man of Moulin-Quignon 

 shows that here also lie was right." 



Since the publication of this account, Messrs. Prestwich and Evans have 

 visited Abbeville, and in conversation, on their return, expressed them- 

 selves convinced that the quarrymen of Abbeville have committed an 

 ingenious fraud, and that the Hint-implements are of recent chipping, and 

 the human bones not fossil. Later still, Dr. Falconer has published the 

 following letter in the ' Times :' — 



The Reputed Fossil Man of Abbeville. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. 



"Sir, — The asserted discovery of a fossil human jaw at Abbeville lias 

 already been noticed in the ' Times;' it has been the subject of a commu- 

 nication to the Royal Society, and at the present moment it is exciting the 

 most lively interest in the scientific circles of both England and France. 

 Having passed a couple of days at Abbeville with M. Boucher de Perthes 

 closely examining all the circumstances of the case, and having been en- 

 trusted by him with some of the specimens, which 1 have now by me here, 

 1 am in a position to throw some light on the subject, 'flic case, as a 

 w hole, presents one of the most subtle instances of perplexed evidence on 

 a point of science that has come under my experience, and is well worthy 

 of a hearing, from the lesson of caution w hich it inculcates. 



" Fashioned (lint-weapons, unquestionably of very remote antiquity, and 

 ascertain proofs of human agency as the watch in the illustration of Paley, 

 have turned up in surprising abundance in the old gravel-beds of Amiens 

 and Abbeville, but hitherto not a vestige of the bones of the men who 



