FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 
217 
relic, the latter has made a detailed examination of it. . . . At present it is 
sufficient to indicate the follou inc? general results : — M. de Quatrefages is 
convinced that the jaw discovered by M. Boucher de Perthes belongs 
really to the bed in which it was discovered. It is then a fossil, in the 
general sense of the word. Geologists discuss still the age of these beds. 
M. de Quatrefages, who is not a geologist, declines entering this part of 
the question, and only occupies himself with the anthropological phase. 
In this point of view, the characters of this jaw have nothing remarkable. 
The differences which separate it from analogous parts in existing races, 
are less than those which can be noted between one and the other of the 
latter. This jaw is not that of a negro, and it presents absolutely nothing 
which would support the theor}' that would make man to be descended 
from the ape by means of a progressive development." 
This communication appearing almost simultaneously, but irrespectively 
of, the letter of Dr. Falconer to the ' Times ' whicli we printed in our last 
number (p. 189), M. de Quatrefages returned again to the subject at the 
next meeting of the Academy on the 27th of April, and, referring to the 
doubts of Dr. Falconer and the English geologists, critically re-discussed 
the circumstances and the grounds for these doubts, asserting that he 
could find nothing in the latter that could withstand a profound examina- 
tion. 
The only right thing which could be done under these circumstances has 
been done. A congress of savants has been held to discuss and decide the 
question. They first met at Paris, but transferred their assembly on the 
11th of May to Abbeville itself. The congress consisted of M. Milne- 
Edwards, member of the Institute, and senior member of the Faculty 
of Sciences, to whom the presidency of the meeting was unanimously 
awarded ; M. de Quatrefages, member of the Institute, and professor of the 
Museum of Natural History; M. E. Lartct, member of the Geological 
Society of France ; M. E. Delesse, engineer of mines, and professor of 
geology at the Normal School ; the Marquis de A^ibray, member of the 
Institute ; M. E. Hebert, professor of geology at Sorbonue ; M. J. Des- 
noyers, member of the Institute, and Librarian of the Museum of Natural 
History ; the Abbe Bourgeois, professor of geology at the College of Pont- 
Levoy ; Dr. F. Garrigall, member of the Geological Society of France; 
M. Albert Gaudry, naturalist at the Museum of Natural History ; M. J. 
Delanoue, member of the Society of Antiquaries of France ; M. Alphonse 
Milne-Edwards ; Dr. Falconer, Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and of the 
Geological Society of London ; Mr. Prestwich, Fellow of the lioyal Society 
and of the Geological Society ; Professor Busk, Fellow of the Eoyal and 
other Societies ; Dr. Carpenter, Fellow of the Eoyal Society and Professor 
of Physiology at ITniversity College, etc. The result of the inquiry was, 
that the Congress admitted that the jaw found on the 28th of March, by 
M. Boucher de Perthes, at Moulin-Quignon, is truly fossil; that it was 
extracted by M. Boucher de Perthes himself from a virgin and undisturbed 
bed : and that the implements that it had been supposed had been fabricated 
by the workmen are incontestably ancient. 
The savants of both nations united in a deputation to convey the intel- 
ligence, and to congratulate M. Boucher de Perthes. The local newspaper, 
the ' Abbevillois,' says : — " We cannot too highly applaud the scrupulous 
care these eminent men have given to this interesting inquiry on a point so 
important to our history, and confirming all that tradition tells us of the 
Biblical deluge, and of the existence of man at the epoch when that great cata- 
clysm altered the face of the earth. The English members of the commis- 
sion, and we thank them for it, have shown a real devotion to science in 
YOL. YI. 2 F 
