190 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



shaped them into form. Why it should be so has remained a mystery, for 

 human bones are as enduring as those of deer, horse, sheep, or oxen, and 

 fossil bones of extinct animals are not unfrequent in the Somme Valley 

 deposits. At last it was thought that the objects so long sought for in vain 

 had been discovered. To pass over minor incidents, on the 28th of March 

 M. de Perthes was summoned to the gravel-pit of Moulin- Qui gnon (de- 

 scribed by Mr. Prestwich in his memoir in the Philosophical Transactions) 

 to examine, in situ, what appeared to be a portion of bone projecting from 

 the cliff of the section, close to its base. (' L'Abbevillois,' Avril 9.) The 

 specimen was carefully detached with his own hands by M. de Perthes, 

 and proved to be the entire half of an adult human lower jaw, quite per- 

 fect, and containing one back tooth, — namely, the penultimate, or last but 

 one. The sockets of the other teeth were all present, and filled with ma- 

 trix, with the exception of the antepenultimate, the socket of which was 

 effaced, the tooth having been lost during life. The solitary molar present 

 was hollow from caries, and crammed with matrix. 



The deposit from which the jaw was extracted is the ' black seam 

 flinty gravel,' so called from its intensely dark (bluish-black) colour, 

 arising from oxides of iron and manganese. It rests immediately upon 

 the chalk, and belongs to what Prestwich. calls the ' high level ' series, 

 being the oldest of the Somme Valley beds. A thin cake of black man- 

 gano-ferruginous clayey matter is interposed between the chalk and the 

 gravel. If the jaw proved to be authentic, and came out of the alleged 

 position, it indicated man, by an actual bone, at a period of extremely re- 

 mote antiquity. The appearance of the jaw was entirely in keeping with 

 the matrix, i. e. dark-coloured and fairly covered with a layer of it. A 

 single detached human molar was found at the same time, corresponding 

 exactly in appearance and matrix ; and, to complete the case, a flint hatchet, 

 covered with black matrix, was extracted from the same spot by M. Oswald 

 Dunpre, who accompanied M. de Perthes. These details are all given in 

 the ' Abbevillois ' of the 9th instant. 



" Two practised experts, Mr. John Evans and Mr. Prestwich, preceded 

 me, on the 11th inst., to Abbeville, and their suspicions were instantly 

 aroused. They pronounced the flint hatchets to be modern fabrications. 

 I followed on the 14th, and got three of them out of the 4 black seam 

 gravel,' covered with matrix, and having every external appearance of 

 reliability ; but, on severely testing them on my return to London, they 

 all proved to be spurious. M. Quatrefages, member of the Institute, and 

 the eminent Professor of Anthropology in the Jardin des Plantes, got two 

 of them in my presence from the same spot on the 15th inst. What they 

 have proved to be I know not as yet, but I anticipate the same results. 

 The number which turned out was marvellous, but the terrassiers were 

 handsomely paid for their findings, and the crop of flint-hatchets became 

 in like degree luxuriant. 



Now for the jaw itself. What complexion of intrinsic evidence did it 

 yield? The craniological materials available at Abbeville for comparison 

 *T ere > °f < -' oul ' !Se > ^eiy limited ; but the specimen presented a series of pecu- 

 liarities which are rarely seen in conjunction in the jaws of European races, 

 ancient or recent. Here I must be a little technical. 1. The posterior 

 margin of the ascending ramus was extremely reclinate, so as to form a 

 very obtuse angle with the ascending ramus. 2. The ascending ramus was 

 unusually low and broad. 3. The sigmoid notch, instead of yielding an 

 outline somewhat like a semicircle, was broad, shallow, and crescentiform. 

 4. The condyle was unusually globular. 5. What was most remarkable 

 <>i all. the posterior angle presented what I may venture to call a marsu- 



