198 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
Quignon. The news of this discovery brought the 
English group of geologists hot-foot to Abbeville. It 
was the first discovery of "river-drift" — terrace-gravel 
man. At first the visitors were impressed favourably. 
Then it was found that some of the implements in 
Boucher de Perthes' collection were forgeries, foisted on 
him by the workmen. The Englishmen returned home 
in doubt, bringing with them the jaw, and also an isolated 
human tooth found in the same stratum. Falconer and 
Busk took the jaw to the museum of the Royal College 
of Surgeons, and cut it across to see the state of fossilisa- 
tion. They also made a section of the isolated tooth. 
The cut surface of the tooth and of the jaw appeared 
surprisingly well preserved and fresh ; they were really 
shocked to find it contained as much as 8 per cent, 
animal matter. That was the circumstance which turned 
their suspicion into a serious doubt, although on the 
shelves of the museum in which they had met there was 
a series of specimens, prepared by John Hunter in 1792, 
to show that the bones of Pleistocene animals may contain 
as much as 30 per cent, of animal matter. Gimbernat 
had even made a jelly from the bones of the mammoth. 
Then a curious thing happened. In May of the' same 
year, 1863, the English geologists went to Paris to meet 
in solemn conclave their confreres of France and pass 
sentence on the jaw. The conference broke up leaving 
the French section convinced that the Moulin Quignon 
jaw was an authentic document, and the English that it 
was a forgery. French anthropologists continued to 
believe in the authenticity of the jaw until between 1880 
and 1890, when they ceased to include it in the list 
of discoveries of ancient man. At the present time 
opinion is almost unanimous in regarding the Moulin 
Quignon jaw as a worthless relic. We see that its 
relegation to oblivion begins when the belief became 
fixed that Neanderthal man represented a Pleistocene 
phase in the evolution of modern races. That opinion, 
we have seen, is no longer tenable. 
Was Boucher de Perthes tricked ? Let us look at the 
