292 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



the earth, at least in our hemisphere, and with a violence sufficiently 

 powerful to snatch from the ocean the immense body of a whale and 

 deposit it in the Paris basin, where now is situate the Faubourg Saint 

 Germain. The valleys were filled with materials prepared by this 

 grand bouleversement, and spread confusedly over all the continent. 



For a long time they seem to have been occupied rather by chains 

 of lakes and marshes than by rivers. The first inhabitants of these 

 countries established themselves near these lakes, and when the 

 inundations came, as come they do in the present day in the same 

 valleys, they naturally left all they cared for least, such as hatchets, 

 and sought the upland. Their burial grounds always having been 

 put out of the reach of these overflows, one never finds human bones 

 mixed with the bones of other animals. As to the vases, which accord- 

 ing to M. Boucher de Perthes contained the ashes of their dead, and 

 might have been carried away by the waters, one can easily under- 

 stand why no vestiges are to be found as they were simply dried in 

 the sun, and would not stand the slightest shock without being 

 reduced to powder." 



Thus it is that objects of human industry are mixed up in the 

 alluvium with the remains of animals of extinct and even new species ; 

 some more or less rolled, others scarcely : and if some depots 

 exist above the present level of the rivers, it is that those rivers have 

 hewn out for themselves a bed deeper and deeper, year by year, in 

 the deposits with which they were in the first instance surrounded. 



M. Robert adds that these valleys have not been filled up very 

 violently, for most of the flint-implements found in the valley of the 

 Somme have a very new look about them which does not admit of 

 their having been much water- worn, although they are side by side 

 with rolled stones from which they might have been cut. 



In alluding to the bone-caves in which human remains are asso- 

 ciated with ancient pottery and the bones of extinct animals, M. 

 Robert refers to the labours of M. Desnoyers, who has pretty well 

 proved that the caverns in which this singular association is offered 

 were inhabited by the Celts, or used as a place of sepulchre by them, 

 ages after they had served as a place of retreat for wild beasts, 

 especially the Ursus spelceus, the bones of which are always found 

 under the superficial deposit which contains the traces of man. 

 Caesar, Florens tells us, ordered his lieutenant, Crassus, to shut up the 

 crafty inhabitants of Aquitaine in the caverns in which they hid 

 themselves, many thus perished. As to the supposed skulls of 

 Caribs, or of African race, found in the caves of Mailet, in Belgium, 

 liny are found associated with other skulls, which by their configura- 

 tion belong to the Circassian race, according to M. Desnoyer, who 

 considers that the analogy suggested by the others is due to an 

 artificial depression, or to an individual peculiarity. 



Touching these bone-caves, M. Robert asks M. Boucher de 

 Perthes in his turn how it happens that these primitive inhabitants 

 of Gaul made no ornaments, or amulets, with the bones of the elephant, 

 rhinoceros, <&c, or that they have not endeavoured to make use of 



