FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



291 



bones of extinct species of elephants, rhinoceros, &c., found at St. 

 Acheul and Meuchecourt, are much worn and water-rolled, and that 

 those of the horse, aurochs, &c, are not ; they are very rarely water- 

 rolled, and those that are belong as often to existing species as to 

 extinct ones. (See Cuvier "Oss. Foss., Bceufs Fossiles," tome iv., 

 p. 162, edition 4 to, 18J3.) ISTo palaeontologist, since Cuvier, has 

 endeavoured to draw a chronological distinction between the bones of 

 the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, stag, and aurochs, mixed pell-mell in 

 the same beds of diluvium, from which the hatchets and worked Hints 

 have since been obtained. The bones found at the above-mentioned 

 places bear no comparison, either in colour or weight, with those of 

 the turbaries or those belonging to existing domestic animals. 



M. B. de Perthes then asks, why the flood, which destroyed the 

 habitations of man, and washed the bones of extinct species from the 

 diluvium to mix with the drowning carcases of animals, did not wash 

 up the bones of man also, and, supposing they burned the dead, the 

 urns which contained the calcined dust ? Why, too, does not the 

 resulting bed contain remains of dwellings, bricks, glass, metals, or 

 indeed of any index of the first stage of civilization presented by the 

 lacustrine deposits of Switzerland ! 



M. B. de Perthes then argues on the age of the flints as shown by 

 their own colour, &c, and by the accompanying beds always being 

 exactly similar, and then proceeds to ask, if the men of those days 

 inhabited the deep vallies and were surprised b} T inundations which 

 washed away their habitations and all they contained, how it is that 

 these hatchets have been found more than thirty metres above the 

 level of the vallies, found, too, associated with elephantine remains ; 

 and how is it, again, that only these have been so carried'? He con- 

 cludes his paper in these words : — " If the diluvium where the bones 

 and hatchets have been found, is not the veritable diluvium, where is 

 it 1 Cuvier, Brongniart, M. Elie de Beaumont himself, and more 

 recently Yerneuil, Lartet, Collomb, Prestwich, Lyell, and Murchison, 

 have been strangely deceived, since they have mistaken that for it ; 

 and stranger still, have recognized as virgin soil that which, according 

 to M. Robert, is but a modern twice deposited alluvium. 



To the above communication of M. Boucher de Perthes, M. Robert 

 has replied at a subsequent elate, to the following effect. 



He considers the most serious objection raised by M. de Perthes 

 to be contained in the following question : — " If the men of that time 

 inhabited the deep valleys and were there surprised by the flood 

 which washed away their dwellings and all they contained, hatchets 

 among the rest, how comes it that these hatchets are found thirty 

 metres above the level of those valleys, and how have they been 

 carried there with the bones of elephants, &c. ?" 



M. Robert submits the following explanation : — 



" At the time of the first appearance of man in Europe, many ages 

 after that great cataclysm which destroyed every breathing thing on 



