rORETGN INTELLTGEyCE. 
189 
adds, that in a mass of bones tbat had been found at Menchecourt, where 
they were found in the early part of April, at 8 metres depth, in the sand 
quarry (sabliere) of 31. Dufour, he had noticed a fragment of human jaw 
and six teeth that Dr. Falconer declared, pendiut? the more ample exami- 
nation he will give them, fossil teeth, and certainly human, but belonging 
to a race more allied to our own than the jaw from Moulin-Quignon. 
de Quatrefages was present. 
M. Boucher de Perthes stated that he would, at a future date, com- 
municate to the Societe d'Eraulaiion a circumstantial account of his double 
discovery. 
For the Secretary, E. Delignieees, 
Abbeville, April ISth, 1863. Vice- Secretary. 
To this account the writer in the ' Abbevillois ' adds : " We learn that 
M. Buteaux, ancien membre of tlie General Council of the Somme and 
member of the Societe d'Emulation, known by his fine geological works, 
came yesterday morning to Moulin-Quignon, and having made an exca- 
vation took himself from the diluA'ial bed of black sand a flint-implement 
{hache), and which was at about 5 metres in depth, near the chalk, and in 
the seam where M, de Perthes discovered the human fossil. M. E. 
Dehgnieres assisted at this digging, as also Mr. ^Nicholas Brady, of London, 
who also extracted with his own hand a manufactured flint. M, Boucher 
de Perthes, in his book on diluvial antiquities, said, in 1847, that some day 
these antediluvian hatchets, then so rare, and the reality of which some 
people did not believe, would be found everywhere. This prediction is 
verified. He added, that it would be the same with human fossils. We 
are now brought to believe that in this respect also Mr. de Perthes has 
rightly predicted. But what has struck us above all is that he equally 
announced that when they did find this fossil man he would exhibit, hke 
other antediluvian mammifers, some difference of conformation from recent 
individuals. The form of the jaw of the fossil man of Moulin-Quignon 
shows that here also he was right." 
Since the publication of this account, Messrs. Prestwich and Evans have 
visited Abbeville, and in conversation, on their return, expressed them- 
selves convinced that the quarrymen of Abbeville have committed an 
ingenious fraud, and that the flint-implements are of recent chipping, and 
the human bones not fossil. Later still, Dr. Falconer has published the 
following letter in the ' Times :' — 
The Reputed Fossil JIan of Abbeville. 
TO THE EDITOIl OF THE TIMES. 
" Sir, — The asserted discovery of a fossil human jaw at Abbeville has 
already been noticed in the ' Times ;' it has been the subject of a commu- 
nication to the Royal Society, and at the present moment it is exciting the 
most lively interest in the scientific circles of both England and France. 
Having passed a couple of days at Abbeville with M. Boucher de Perthes 
closely examining all the circumstances of the case, and having been en- 
trusted by him with some of the specimens, which I have now by me here, 
I am in a position to throw some light on the subject. The case, as a 
whole, presents one of the most subtle instances of perplexed evidence on 
a point of science that has come under my experience, and is well worthy 
of a hearing, from the lesson of caution which it inculcates. 
" Fashioned flint-weapons, unquestionably of very remote antiquity, and 
as certain proofs of human agency as the watch in the illustration of Paley, 
have turned up in surprising abundance in the old gravel-beds of Amiens 
and Abbeville, but hitherto not a vestige of the bones of the men \\ho 
