FOKEIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



225 



viction of the English experts as to their modern character, to have come 

 to doubt his original belief in the authenticity of the jaw. H. F." 



We will now return to M. de Quatrcfages' paper before the French 

 Academy, as the particulars are interesting, and one point is worthy of 

 some consideration. 



" The jaw was found ... in an undisturbed quaternary deposit at Mou- 

 lin-Quignon, near Abbeville. Below is the section of the beds : — 



" Section at Moulin-Quignon. 



Metres. 



1. Coating of vegetable earth 0'30 



2. Undisturbed earth, grey sand mixed with broken flints . . . 0'70 



3. Yellow argillaceous sand mingled with large flints slightly rolled, 



resting on a bed of grey sand 1*50 



4. Yellow ferruginous sand, flints more or less rolled like the pre- 



ceding, below which is a bed of sand less yellow. In this bed 

 have been found fragments of teeth, etc., of JElephas primigenius 



and flint-implements 1*70 



5. Black sand, argillo-ferruginous, colouring the hand and adhering 



to it, apparently containing organic matters ; small pebbles 



more rolled than in the superior beds ; fossil human jaw . . 0*50 



470 



6. Bed of chalk on which reposes the bed of black argillaceous sand 

 at a depth of 5 metres below the surface. 



" The argillo-ferrnginous bed in which the jaw was found varies in 

 places from O30 to 0'GO metre in thickness. No part of it is confounded 

 with the beds above, and it follows all the undulations of the chalk under 

 it ; thus it may be said to lie at a depth of from 4 to 5 metres from the 

 surface. . . . 



"The jaw is in a remarkable state of preservation. It does not appear 

 to be at all rotted. The extremity of the coronoid apophysis itself is 

 intact. This fact would make one think it had not come from far, and 

 would give the hope that there may yet be found some other part of the 

 skeleton of which it formed part. M. de Perthes has desired that the 

 greatest respect may be paid to the gangue which still adheres to some 

 ] Minis of the surface ; lie has washed the extremity of the coronoid apo- 

 physis and a part of the head of the condyle. There one perceives that 

 the brown tint which the whole bone presents has not penetrated deeply. 

 Gravel-stones washed with care have presented a similar peculiarity. 

 The gemgue conceals some details, especially on the internal side; but it 

 permits, however, a sufficiently complete study. "When we examine this 

 jaw, we are at once struck with two peculiarities the angle formed by 

 the horizontal ramus and the ascending ramus is extremely open ; the 

 fourth molar, which alone is in place, is slightly inclined forward. These 

 two traits had been even somewnai exaggerated in a drawing which was 

 first sent to me, and perhaps to this cause is due the attention which 

 from the first they have elicited from me. Should w e see there a race- 

 character? Before examining in this point of view, let us remark thai lor 

 man, as for animals, the com para i i\ e o>t oology of races, in respect to de- 

 tails, is still very little advanced. Tl is a new study, to which palaeontolo- 

 gists are necessarily put as well as anthropologists, by reason of the facts 

 which tend to bring into contact the history of animals and that of man. 

 The obtuseness (ouverture) of the angle of which 1 speak is one of those 



VOL. VI. 2 Q 



