niiiri.sH ASS()oi.\riOiV mehtixo. 
397 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 
Tlic 29tli Meeting of the British Association opened on tlie 14t.h instant at 
Aberdeen, under the presidency of His lloyal Higlmess tlie Prince Consort. 
The day following the various Sections were opened, tliat of Geology being 
under tlic presidency of Sir Charles Lyell. In liis o])eiiiug address, lie said, 
" No subject has lately excited more curiosity and general interest among 
geologists and the public t han tlie (pi est ion of the antiquity of tlie human race ; 
whether or no we liave sufficient evidence to prove the former co-existence of 
man with certain extinct manmialia, in caves, or in the superficial deposits com- 
monly called drift or ' dUavium ' For the last quarter of a century the oc- 
casional occurrence in various parts of Euro])e of the bones of man, or the 
works of his luuids, in cave-breccias and stalactites associated witli the remains 
of the extinct hysena, bear, elephant, or rhinoceros, have given rise to a 
suspicion that the date of man must be carried furtlier back tlian we had here- 
tofore imagined. On the other hand, extreme reluctance was naturally felt on 
tlie part of scientific rcasoners, to admit the validity of such evidence, seeing 
that so many caves have been inliabitcd by a succession of tenants, and have 
been selected by man as a place not oidy of domicUe, but of sepulture, while 
some caves have also served as the channels tlirougli whicli tlie waters of 
flooded rivers liave flowed, so that tlie remains of li\ iug beings which have 
peopled the districi at more than one era may have subsequently been mingled 
in such caverns and confounded together in one and the same deposit. The 
facts, however, recently brought to light during the systematic investigation, as 
reported on by Dr. Falconer, of the Brixliam Cave, must, I tlimk, have prepared 
you to admit that scepticism in regard to the cave-evidence in favour of the 
antiquity of man had previously been pushed to an extreme. To escape from 
what I now consider was a legitimate deduction from the facts already accumu- 
lated, we were obliged to resort to hypotheses requiring great changes in the 
relative levels and d.rainage of valleys, and, in short, the whole physical geo- 
graphy of the respective regions where the caves are situated — changes that 
would alone imply a remote antiquity for the human fossil remains, and make it 
probable that man was old enougli to have co-existed at least with the 
Siberian mammoth. But in the course of the last fifteen years another class 
of proofs have been advanced in France in confirmation of man's antiquity ; 
invo two of which 1 have personally examined in the course of the present 
summer, and to which 1 shall now briefly advert. First, so long ago as the 
year ISli, M. Aymard, an eminent palseontologist and antiquary, published au 
account of the discovery in the volcanic district of Central France of portions 
of two human skeletons (the skulls, teeth, and bones) embedded in a volcanic 
breccia found in the mountain of Denise, in the environs of Le Puy en Velay ; 
a breccia anterior in date to one at least of the latest eruptions of that volcanic 
mountaui. On the opposite side of the same hill the remains of a large number 
of mammalia, most of them of extinct species, have been detected in tufaceous 
strata, believed, and I think correctly, to be of the same age. The authenticity 
of tlie human fossils was from the first disputed by several geologists, but ad- 
mitted by the majority of those who visited Le Puy and saw with their own 
eyes the original specimen now in the museum of that town. Among others 
M. Pictet, so well known to yon by his excellent work on palaeontology, declared, 
after his visit to the spot, his adiiesion to the opinions previously expressed by 
Aymard. iVIy friend, Mr. Scrope, in the second edition of his ' VVjlcanos of 
VOI-. ir. L I, 
