rOEEIGX 1^'TELLIGENCE. 
255 
of a coaly envelope of outer bark, presents tlie irregularly-ribbed and fur- 
rowed surface, with occasional scars, so often seen on old Sigillariae and 
their main roots. The central axis is cylindrical, and shows on its trans- 
verse section a Medullosa resemblinoj one described by Cotta. The outside 
of this cylinder is striated longitudinally, like a Calamite, and not to be 
distinguished from the Calamltes remotus of Brongniart. ]S"ext comes a 
cylinder of wedge-shaped bundles of barred vessels, in radiating series, 
, parted by spaces resembling medullary rays, in all respects similar to that 
found in Stigmaria, SigiUaria, and Aiiahathra. Outside of the last, with 
a small interval, is another cylinder composed of vessels not barred, 
arranged in radiating series, and parted by large wedge-shaped bundles of 
vessels running towards the circumference. The structure of this outer 
cylinder is identical with that of Calamodendron, and its exterior has the 
irregularly-ribbed and furrowed apj)earance previously alluded to. 
Yours truly, 
Edwabd William Ei>:ney. 
Manchester, June 10th, 1863. 
rOEEIGN INTELLIGENCE. 
The question of the contemporaneity of man with extinct species of 
animals has again been brought before the Academy of Sciences by a 
paper of M. J, Desnoyers, on the 8th ultimo, in which he announced his 
having mot with materials indicating the co-existence of man with the 
Elephas meridionalis, in a de])Osit in the environs of Chartres, of greater 
age than the drift of the valleys of the Somme and the Seine. These indi- 
cations are kinds of notches or streaks made by the human hand, which he 
has observed on many of the fossil bones of many of the great extinct 
mammals found in that deposit at Saint-Prest,near Chartres. M. Desnoj'ers 
also notices indications of the same character in bones from other localiiies. 
The conclusions deduced in his paper are — that fossil bones of JElephas 
meridionalis, Rhinoceros leptorhinus, R. Etruscus, Ilippopotanuis major, 
many of large and small deer, and other species of manmiifers charac- 
teristic of the Upper Tertiary or Pliocene strata, discovered in an undis- 
turbed deposit of that geological age, bear numerous and evident traces of 
notchings, scratches, and cuts which are perfectly analogous to those which 
haA'e been observed on the fossil bones of other more recent species, some 
of which, now extinct, accompanied the Elephas primigenitis, Rhinoceros 
tichorhinus, Ursus spelc^us, Hi/cena spelcea, etc., and others still living, such 
as the Keindeer and other deer, the Aurochs, etc., but remains of which 
are found commingled together in ossiferous caverns, in drift-beds, or in 
peat. Like vestiges have been met with on numbers of bones of existing 
species in the excavations for houses, and in Celtic, Celto-Eoman, and Saxon 
graves. The marks noted on the fossil bones from the most ancient beds 
appear to have had, for the most part, the same origin as those on the more 
recent bones, and cannot be, so far as we yet know anything to the con- 
trary, attributed to any other source than the act of man. Other striae, 
finer, rectilinear, and inter-crossing, which are seen also in graat number on 
the bones from the Pliocene deposit of the neighbourhood of Chartres and 
from other localities, are analogous to those seen on striated and rolled 
boulders of ancient and modern glaciers. The section at Saint-Prest, una- 
nimously recognized as Upper Tertiary, or Pliocene, and anterior to all the 
