302 M. Delpon on the Bones of various Animals 
been soiled by the water, had it deposited these alluvial mat- 
ters so regularly. Besides the elevation of this grotto being more 
than 300 metres above the river, precluded the idea that the 
waters of the Sele could have reached it. 
Hoping that they would be more fortunate in the other 
branches of the gallery, they gave up working in this ; but the 
others presented nothing but bones placed in the same man- 
ner. So great a quantity was taken out, that the whole together 
would have formed a mass of more than twenty cubic metres. 
The greater number of such as possessed any extraordinary ap- 
pearance, were broken by the persons who first got hold of them. 
Some of the bones were incrusted, and others inclosed in a cal- 
careous breccia, with a crystalline paste. The greater number 
were so well preserved, that they looked as if the flesh had been 
recently detached from them ; but as soon as they were exposed 
to the external air, they became scaly and whitish. 
Among these bones there were recognised the skull of a rhi- 
noceros, three teeth of the same animal ; the head of a species of 
deer now unknown upon the globe, and of which the horns have 
some resemblance to those of a young reindeer (see the lie- 
cherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles , t. iv. p. 89) ; the fragments 
of the horn of a large species of deer equally unknown, but allied 
to the common stag; and, lastly, the humerus of a large ox, 
and a horse’s femur. 
M. Delpon concludes his notice with some judicious re- 
fections. He infers, from the existence of these bones of ani- 
mals foreign to our climate, and which have formerly lived on 
our soil, that the temperature has diminished since the time when 
it was sufficiently high to allow these animals to live. In a histo- 
rical point of view, he inquires for what reason their bones had 
been deposited with so much care in the cavities where they have 
been found. He thinks that these grottoes were used by the 
Druids for performing their ceremonies in them, and supposes the 
bones in question to be the remains of the sacrifices which they 
had offered to the gods. We are of opinion, that, whatever uses 
these caverns may have been applied to, according to the times, 
the bones which are found in them are of a date much anterior 
to the Druids, and even to the establishment of the human spe- 
cies in these countries ; and that their regular arrangement is a 
