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THE GEOLOGIST, 



Henry Christy, his collaborateur in the work, communicated to the Academy 

 of Sciences on the 29th ultimo an account of these relics, which, when ex- 

 hibited, produced an unusual sensation among the learned Academicians. 

 I purpose now giving a brief sketch of this new and certainly very ancient 

 Avalk of art, drawn mainly from M. Lartet's paper, which will speedily ap- 

 pear in the 'Comptes Hendues' and from figures of the objects. 



" The proofs of the remote antiquity of man are derived from two sources 

 ■*— 1, the ancient, or ' quaternary,' river gravel- deposits ; 2, the ossiferous 

 caves. The former, handled with the severe caution of Mr. Prestwich, 

 carries man furthest back in time, and with the greatest certainty ; but it 

 is of the most meagre and restricted character, consisting merely of flmt 

 weapons or implements, hardly ranging beyond a few patterns. Not a 

 single instance has yet occurred of a fragment even of an unquestionably 

 authentic human bone having turned up in these deposits. On the other 

 hand, the evidence yielded by the caves, although less certain as an index 

 of remote time, is infinitely more varied and instructive. It tells us, in 

 certain cases, the division of the human race to which man, the early tenant 

 of the caves, probably belonged ; what was his stature and what his physical 

 powers ; what the animals which were his contemporaries ; what the mol- 

 lusks, fish, flesh, and fowl upon which he fed ; that he cooked his meat by 

 fire ; that he extracted the marrow from the bones, and how he did it ; 

 how and with what weapons he killed his game ; how he flayed and dressed 

 the hides ; that he scraped the meat off the bones ; that he carefully cut 

 the sinews of his slaughtered deer for harpoon lines, or for the fibre of 

 sewing-thread for his fine-pointed pierced needles ; where and in what di- 

 rection he cut the sinews ; what the implements and weapons — in stone, 

 bone, and deer's horn — which he used ; what his ornaments, and how he 

 disposed of his dead. It is now beginning to enlighten us on what he was 

 capable of achieving in the way of art, and that in music he had got the 

 initial length of a bone whistle limited to a single note. The cave evidence 

 has been disparaged by cursory observers and light reasoners, upon the 

 grounds that the caves have been occupied at different times, and their 

 contents often disturbed by the latest tenants, thus forming what are called 

 remanie deposits. But the shortcomings lay with the objectors themselves. 

 When the profound palseontological knowledge, rare sagacity, and philo- 

 sophic caution of M. Lartet are applied to what were sources of doubt and 

 embarrassment to them, the supposed difficulties are converted into aids in 

 unravelling the tangled clue, and into indices of ulterior truths. In short, 

 beside the bare fact that primeval man existed during the early ' fluviatile 

 drift period in Europe,' all that we know of him — exclusive of the later 

 ' kitchen-middens ' and ' pile-habitations ' — is derived solely and entirely 

 from the ossiferous caves. 



" The caverns which, on this occasion, were the objects of exploration 

 by M. Lartet and Mr. Henry Christy, occur in the department of the 

 Dordogne (the ancient province of Perigord), and in the arrondissemeut of 

 Sarlat, in the south-western part of Central France. The most productive 

 localities were the cave of ' Les Eyzies,' in the commune of Tayac, the 

 cave of ' Le Moustier,' and the shelter-recesses under the projecting cliffs 

 of ' Laugerie-Haute,' ' Laugerie-Basse,' and 'La Madeleine,' in the val- 

 ley of the Vezere ; the rock-formation consisting of indurated chalk. 

 The floor of 'Les Eyzies' cavern is overlaid by a continuous sheet of 

 breccia, composed of a base of cinders and ashes, mingled with charcoal ; 

 fragments of bones either in the natural state, or split, scorched, or burnt ; 

 outside pebbles; flint cores with numerous fragments of flint flakes or 



