ON TIIE HUMAN JAW OE MOULIN-QUIONON. 
425 
considered to be spurious. Having been obligingly permitted by 
M. de Perthes to examine the jaw, he was struck with the unusual 
combination of peculiar anatomical characters which it presented, 
and was thus led to the impression that it was of fossil antiquity. 
That impression he communicated on the 14th to Dr. Carpenter, 
and on the 15th to M. de Quatrefages, at Abbeville, but subject to 
the reserve of a more detailed study of the materials, # and on the 
15th he wrote to the same effect to his friend, M. Lartet, to whom 
the jaw was consigned in Paris. 
On the 16th of April Dr. Carpenter communicated a short 
paper to the Eoyal Society, supporting the authenticity of the 
discovery; and during the debate, Dr. Falconer, in the absence 
of Dr. Carpenter and himself, was unauthorisedly cited as enter¬ 
taining the same opinion. On the 20th of April M. de Quatrefages 
communicated to the ‘ Academy of Sciences ’ a note by M. Boucher 
de Perthes, followed by descriptive remarks by himself, conveying the 
high authority of his opinion in favour of the jaw being a true fossil of 
geological antiquity. On the 18th of April, Dr. Falconer, immediately 
after his return to London, commenced the deliberate scrutiny of the 
materials which he had brought with him from Abbeville, and on the 
21st, in conjunction with, or aided by, Mr. John Evans, Mr. Prestwich, 
Mr. Busk and Mr. Tomes, he arrived at results opposed to the authen¬ 
ticity alike of the ‘ detached molar,’ of the jaw, and of the flint hdches. 
That day, without the delay of a post, he communicated his suspicions 
to M. Lartet, requesting him to make them, and the grounds upon 
which they were founded, known to M. de Quatrefages. But the 
latter had already given in his affirmative memoir to the “ Institut ” 
on the previous day (20th), followed on the 27th of April and 4th May 
by successive notes in the same sense. On the 25th of April a 
letter by Dr. Falconer, written before he was aware of M. de Quatre- 
fage’s first communication appeared in the Times , questioning the 
authenticity of the “jaw” and of the hdches. Men of science in 
France and England were thus suddenly placed at direct issue on a grave 
and important point of great general interest. But, happily, from the 
frankness and rapidity of the communications interchanged, there 
existed the most cordial relations, and the conviction of loyalty and good 
faith on both sides. The French savans the more they went into 
the case, were the more convinced of the soundness of their 
conclusions ; while their English opponents, the more they weighed 
the evidence before them were the more strengthened in their doubts. 
As a wordy discussion would but have wasted time and must have 
been protracted, and as a personal conference held out the best 
prospect of a speedy settlement of the question, a ‘ reunion ’ of men 
of science, to be held at Paris, was proposed by the French savans. 
* The reserve is expressly mentioned by M. de Quatrefages in the first para¬ 
graph of his note read to the Academy of Sciences on the 20th of April, 1863 : — 
“ Neanmoins nous nous sommes quittes avec l’intention de faire subir aux objets 
eux-memes tin examen ulterieur.”—(Vide Comptes Bend us du 20 Avril.) 
