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THE GEOLOGIST. 



quitting their business to join the French professors and aid them with 

 their opinions. The frank cordiality, the good faith and impartiality that 

 they have shown in the discussion, is above all praise. . . . Dr. Falconer, 

 the great English palaeontologist, and Messrs. Prestwich and Busk, whom 

 all the world know by their fine works, have gained for themselves much 

 honour. Our town ought to be proud of the reunion within, its walls of 

 such men, so justly esteemed in France, as well as in England. On the 

 14th, M. de Cailleux, member of the Institute, and director-general of 

 museums ; Professor Edward Collomb, the well-known mineralogist ; M. 

 Hebert, who had already come to the deliberations of the 12th, and other 

 Parisian notabilities whose names we regret we do not know ; and lastly, 

 a party of pupils of the learned professor of the Sorbonne have arrived 

 and visited our beds, now become so celebrated, and the galleries, not less 

 known, of M. Boucher de Perthes. "We see that this discovery of antedi- 

 luvial man, which in other times would have passed unpereeived, has be- 

 come a truly scientific ceremony. 



" In the sciences, as in everything else, the slightest circumstance may 

 serve to resolve a great question. Mr. Busk, the celebrated English che- 

 mist and naturalist, who came to Abbeville with Messrs. Falconer and 

 Prestwich, making, on the 12th of this month (May), some experiments on 

 the argillaceous ' black bed,' which contained the jaw and haches from 

 Moulin-Quignon, let fall on the ivory handle of his penknife a drop of the 

 black earth wetted with water. On the morrow it had dried, and presented 

 a metallic reflection. Having washed it, he perceived that the handle of 

 the knife remained perfectly white. This explained to him the non- 

 coloration of the implements, and the whiteness which had been preserved 

 in the interior of the jaw. This earth, having no staining or penetrating 

 qualities, could not alter their surfaces. Mr. Busk immediately acquainted 

 Messrs. Prestwich and Falconer, who concurred with him and adopted his 

 opinion. It was this appearance of newness, vrhich however is not an 

 unusual case, that on his (former) return to England had engendered the 

 (then) conviction of Dr. Falconer. He believed, for a time, in a ruse of 

 the workmen ; but, equally conscientious as learned, and never recoiling 

 from the truth, the eminent palaeontologist exhibited a real joy when his 

 doubts were dissipated and he was able to proclaim the innocence of the 

 workmen. Honour should be rendered to Dr. Falconer, who, in this dis- 

 cussion, in London as in Paris and at Abbeville, has given proof not only 

 of a profound knowledge but of a probity and courage which French and 

 English alike admire. 



" Messrs. Prestwich and Busk, Dr. Carpenter, and Mr. John Evans, 

 although the latter could not come to France to this second meeting, have 

 shown the same dignity of character. AYe applaud these men, who thus 

 do honour both to science and to their country. Amongst those who have 

 thrown most light in this discussion must be mentioned the president of 

 the commission, M. Milne-Edwards, M. de Quatrefages, the celebrated 

 professor of anthropology, and M. E. Lartet, who for nve-and-tweuty 

 years has made such great progress in pakeontological investigations. 

 These gentlemen have supported, without ever varying, the authenticity 

 of the human fossil and the antiquity of the haches. 



" A very simple incident had tended more than anything else to enlighten 

 M. de Quatrefages. M. Boucher de Perthes had, on the 28th of March, 

 extracted the jaw from its bed before numerous witnesses. The workmen, 

 who expected to see some monstrous bone appear, as at Menchecourt. were 

 confounded at the apparition of so small an object, and which, enveloped 

 in its gavgue, did not even appear to them to be a bone at all. M. Boucher 



