1 879.] Early Traces of Man. 405 
did not lose heart on suffering this partial repulse. He 
continued his researches with vigour, and again, in 1872, 
provided now with better specimens, he raised the question 
at the Brussels Congress. There he made some headway 
among the best experts. But on the commission which was 
specially appointed to examine the flints were several mem- 
bers who knew but very little diredtly about the manner of 
working on flint, and they either hesitated or passed an ad- 
verse judgment. Hence the question was not definitively 
settled. This result— half success, half failure — stimulated 
the ardour of the accomplished naturalist ; he continued his 
investigations, and so succeeded in collecting for the Anthro- 
pological Exposition a remarkable series of flint implements 
which dispels all doubt. 
This collection was made up of flints which beyond a 
doubt had undergone the action of fire. They are full of 
cracks, and even quite discoloured. With these are other 
flints, far more numerous, which have simply been split by 
fire. Among them are some which unquestionably have been 
neatly and regularly retouched on one or both of their mar- 
gins. Every one who has carefully and impartially examined 
them has admitted that the second dressing (les retailles) was 
certainly intentional, and consequently that it was the work 
of an intelligent creature. 
It remains to determine the age to which these flints 
belong. They were collected at Thenay, in formations 
clearly in situ and intadt, and belonging to the formation 
known among geologists as “ calcaires de Beauce but now 
these calcaires de Beauce constitute the lower strata of the 
Middle Tertiary. This is shown by the fauna which the 
Abbe Bourgeois exhibited in connection with the flints. 
This fauna, which comes from the sands of the Orleanais, 
which directly overlie the calcaires de Beauce, comprises 
great mastodons and dinotheriums belonging to the Lower 
Miocene. Then there is the acerotherium, a genus akin to 
the rhinoceros, and which was found in the very same 
stratum as the fire-split and re-dressed flints. 
It results, therefore, from the Abbe Bourgeois’s researches, 
that during the Middle Tertiary there existed a creature, 
precursor of man, an anthropopithecus, which was ac- 
quainted with fire and could make use of it for splitting 
flints. It also knew how to trim the flint-flakes thus pro- 
duced and to convert them into tools. 
This curious and interesting discovery for a long time 
stood alone, and arguments were even drawn from this 
