398 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
Central France,' lately published, also adopted tlie same Conclusion, altliougli 
after acconipauyiuij me this year to Le Piiy, he has sceu reason to modify his 
views. The result of our joiut examination, a result wiiich I believe essentially 
coincides with that arrived at by M. Hebert and M. Lartet, names well known 
to science, who Ikivc also this year gone into this inquiry on the spot, nuiy 
thus be stated. We are by no means prepared to maintain that the specimen 
in the museum at Lc Puy (which unfortunately was never seen in sifii by any 
scientific ohsei-ver) is a fabrication. On the contrary, we incline to believe that 
the human fossils in this and some other specimens from the same hUl were 
really indjedded l)y natural causes in their present matrix. But the rock in 
which they are entombed consists of two parts, one of which is a comjjact, and 
for tlie most part thmly laminated stone, into wliieh none of the human bones 
penetrate ; the other containing the l)ones is a lighter and nnich more porous 
stone without lamination, to wliicli we coidd find nothing similar in the 
mountain of Denise, altliough both M. Hebert and 1 "made several excavations 
on the alleged site of the fossils. M. Hebert tlierefore suggested to me that 
this more porous stone, which resembles in colour and mineral com])osition, 
though not in structure, parts of the genuine old breccia of Denise, may be 
formed of the older rock broken up and afterwards re-de])ositcd, or as tlie French 
say, remaiie, and tlierefore of much newer date — an hyiiothesis which well 
deserves consideration ; but I feel that wc arc at present so ignorant of the 
precise circumstances and position under wliieh these celebrated human fossils 
were found, that I ought not to waste time in specidatiug on their probable 
mode of interment, but simply declare that in my 0])inion they afford no de- 
monstration of man having witnessed the last volcanic eruptions of Central 
France. The skulls, according to the judgment of the most competent osteolo- 
gists wlio h;ive yet seen them, do not seem to depart in a marked manner from 
the modern European, or Caucasian type, and tlie human bones are in a fresher 
state than those of the Eleplias mcridiunalin and other quadrupeds found in any 
breccia in Denise which can be referred to tlie [ifriodeven of the hitest volcanic 
eruptions. But while I have thus failed to obtain satisfactory evidence in 
favour of tlie remote origin assigned to the human fossils of LePuy, I am fuUy 
prepared to corroborate the conclusions which have been recently laid before 
the Boyal Society by Mr. Prestwich, in regard to the age of the flint-imple- 
ments associated, ui undisturbed gravel in the north of France, with the bones 
of elephants at Abbeville and Amiens. These were first noticed at Abbeville, 
and tlieu- true geological position assigned to them by M. Boucher de Perthes, 
in 1849, in his ' Antifpiites Celtiqucs,' wliUe those of Amiens were afterwards 
described, in 1855, by the late Dr. RigoUet. Foraelear statement of the facts, 
I may refer you to the abstract of Mr. Prcstwich's memoir m the Proceedings 
of the Boyal Society, for 1859, and I have only to add that I have myself ob- 
tained abundance of flint-implements (some of which are hud upon the table) 
during a short visit to Amiens and Abbeville. Two of the worked-flints of 
Amiens were discovered in the gravel-pits of St. Aeheul, one at the depth of 
ten, and the other of seventeen feet below the surface, at the time of my visit ; 
and M. Georges Pouchet, of Rouen, author of a work on the ' liaces of Man,' 
who has since visited the spot, has extracted with his own hands one of these 
implements, as Messrs. Prestwich and Flower had done before him. The 
stratified gravel, in which these rudely-fashioned instruments are buried, 
resting immediately on the Chalk, belongs to the ])ost-i)lioccne period, all the 
fresh-water and land-shells which accompany them being of existing species. 
The great number of the fossU instruments which ha\'e been likened to hatchets, 
spear-heads, and wedges is truly wonderful. More than a thousand of them 
have already been met with in tlie last ten years, in the valley of the Somme, 
in an area lifteen miles in length. 1 infer that a tribe of savages, to whom the 
