158 
THE GEOLOiilST. 
spear point, and bearing in partial relief the beads of a horse and of a deer, 
probably reindeer. Others are ornamented with longitudinal and parallet 
wavy lines, etc. A distinct class consists of palmated portions of reindeer 
horns, bearing representations of animal forms, — some executed in graved 
lines, others in bas-relief or in high relief. One of these palmations ex- 
hibits a figure of a large herbivorous animal N^ hich has been conjecturally 
referred to the Aurochs. Another is supposed to represent an ox, probably 
Bos primi genius (?). The collection, judging by the drawings which I have 
seen, is very rich in spear-heads, barbed harpoons, arrow-heads, and finely 
pointed slender needles, drilled with an eye-hole. The harpoons bear a 
close resemblance to the Esquimaux patterns. On one object the figure 
of a scaly fish is distinctly represented. The ornaments consist of canines 
of wolf, incisors of ox and other animals, with ear-bones of horse or ox, all 
drilled for suspension. One curious object is the first digital phalanx of a 
ruminant, drilled to a certain depth by a smooth cylindrical bore, on its 
lower surface near the expanded upper articulation. This is supposed to 
have been a whistle or call, and a shrill sound is yielded on apphnng it to 
the lower lip and blowing into it. Three of tliese whistle phalanges are of 
reindeer, one of chamois. One relic of surpassing interest consists of the 
lumbar vertebra of a reindeer, pierced through and through by a flint wea- 
pon, which still remains embedded in the bone, fixed by calcareous incrus- 
tation. This is an object of great significance and extreme rarity. Human 
bones, although found, were very scarce; but M.Lartet has refrained from 
alluding to them, with a reserve the reason of which is indicated by M. 
Milne-Edwards. In forming an estimate of the value of the relics of art, 
the reader will bear in mind that they are the productions of the unpolished 
and unground ' Stone period,' the tools employed having been thin chips 
and delicate flakes of flint. Such, at least, is the fair inference drawn 
with our present lights from the negative evidence, not a trace of metal in 
any shape having been met with in the Dordogne Caves. But if primeval 
man really had made such progress in the conceptions of art w ithout having 
yet attained the knowledge of metals, it will be as curious an anthropolo- 
gical phenomenon as are the art objects themselves, which express that 
degree of luxury which ease, leisure, and comfort beget. Heindeer's horn 
is notoriously the most worthless and incompact of cervine antlers ; it is 
readily whittled by a knife, which is not the case with stag's horns. 
" The labours of M. Lartet and Mr. Henry Christy on the Dordogne 
Caves commenced in August, 1863. They have been continued ever since, 
and are still in progress. Valuable and instructive as is the Dordogne col- 
lection, it is surpassed in certain respects by another, from the ' Bruniquel 
Cave,' in the south of France, more recently formed by other observers. 
The Bruniquel series, it would appear, does not embrace the same range 
of art, but it is richer in the department of Aveapons and implements, such 
as harpoons, spear- heads, etc., which are larger, more numerous, better 
finished, and in better preservation. These precious materials were offered 
in succession to the French Government and to the British Museum. 
* Perfide Albion ' has got them : they are now in the national collection. 
The result does infinite credit to the zeal, enterprise, and activity of the ad- 
ministration of the British Museum. But the satisfaction which so valuable 
an acquisition necessarily excites is not wholly unmixed. The investigation 
of truth is above and beside national predilection. The 'Bruniquel Cave' 
series is now divorced from the collections in France, of which it forms a 
complement, and upon which M. Lartet has been engaged since 18G1, when 
he published his important researches on the Scpulture-Cavc of Auriguac. 
