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THE GEOLOGIST. 



spear point, and bearing in partial relief the heads of a horse and of a deer, 

 probably reindeer. Others are ornamented with longitudinal and paralleL 

 wavy lines, etc. A distinct class consists of palmated portions of reindeer 

 horns, bearing representations of animal forms, — some executed in graved 

 lines, others in bas-relief or in high relief. One of these palmations ex- 

 hibits a figure of a large herbivorous animal which has been conjecturally 

 referred to the Aurochs. Another is supposed to represent an ox, probably 

 Bos primi genius (?). The collection, judging by the drawings which I have 

 seen, is very rich in spear-heads, barbed harpoons, arrow-heads, and finely 

 pointed slender needles, drilled with an eye-hole. The harpoons bear a 

 close resemblance to the Esquimaux patterns. On one object the figure 

 of a scaly fish is distinctly represented. The ornaments consist of canines 

 of wolf, incisors of ox and other animals, with ear-bones of horse or ox, all 

 drilled for suspension. One curious object is the first digital phalanx of a 

 ruminant, drilled to a certain depth by a smooth cylindrical bore, on its 

 lower surface near the expanded upper articulation. This is supposed to 

 have been a whistle or call, and a shrill sound is yielded on applying it to 

 the lower lip and blowing into it. Three of these whistle phalanges are of 

 reindeer, one of chamois. One relic of surpassing interest consists of the 

 lumbar vertebra of a reindeer, pierced through and through by a flint wea- 

 pon, which still remains embedded in the bone, fixed by calcareous incrus- 

 tation. This is an object of great significance and extreme rarity. Human 

 bones, although found, were very scarce ; but M. Lartet has refrained from 

 alluding to them, with a reserve the reason of which is indicated by M. 

 Milne-Edwards. In forming an estimate of the value of the relics of art, 

 the reader will bear in mind that they are the productions of the unpolished 

 and unground ' Stone period,' the tools employed having been thin chips 

 and delicate flakes of flint. Such, at least, is the fair inference drawn 

 with our present lights from the negative evidence, not a trace of metal in 

 any shape having been met with in the Dordogne Caves. But if primeval 

 man really had made such progress in the conceptions of art without having 

 yet attained the knowledge of metals, it will be as curious an anthropolo- 

 gical phenomenon as are the art objects themselves, which express that 

 degree of luxury which ease, leisure, and comfort beget. Reindeer's horn 

 is notoriously the most worthless and incompact of cervine antlers ; it is 

 readily whittled by a knife, which is not the case with stag's horns. 



" The labours of M. Lartet and Mr. Henry Christy on the Dordogne 

 Caves commenced in August, 1863. They have been continued ever since, 

 and are still in progress. V aluable and instructive as is the Dordogne col- 

 lection, it is surpassed in certain respects by another, from the ' Bruniquel 

 Cave,' in the south of France, more recently formed by other observers. 

 The Bruniquel series, it would appear, does not embrace the same range 

 of art, but it is richer in the department of weapons and implements, such 

 as harpoons, spear-heads, etc., which are larger, more numerous, better 

 finished, and in better preservation. These precious materials were offered 

 in succession to the French Government and to the British Museum. 

 4 Perfide Albion ' has got them : they are now in the national collection. 

 The result does infinite credit to the zeal, enterprise, and activity of the ad- 

 ministration of the British Museum. But the satisfaction which so valuable 

 an acquisition necessarily excites is not wholly unmixed. The investigation 

 of truth is above and beside national predilection. The ' Bruniquel Cave' 

 series is now divorced from the collections in France, of which it forms a 

 complement, and upon which M. Lartet has been engaged since 1801. when 

 he published his important researches on the Sepulture-Cave of Aurignae. 



