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ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
at will when the gangue is soft and moist, simply by rubbing or wiping with a 
cloth, which may have been the case when the jaw was disengaged. (G. B.) 
Note 31.—Dr. Carpenter agreed in the opinion expressed by Mr. Prestwieh, 
that if the strice insisted upon by Mr. Busk may have been produced artificially 
by a brush, they may also have been produced by friction in the gravel. (W. B. C.) 
Note 32.—Mr. Busk ascertained subsequently that some of the moistened ma¬ 
trix which was accidentally brought in contact with the ivory handle of a penknife, 
produced after a few hours the same appearance of thin plates with metallic lustre, 
as those insisted upon by M. de Quatrefages. (Vide postea, Note 48.) (G. B.) 
Note 33.—The “detached molar,” which had been sawn in London was given 
up by the English members of the Conference at the previous seance , to meet the 
wishes of M. de Perthes, expressed by M. de Quatrefages. It was a strong part of 
the case upon which their opinions had been formed in London, and they were pre¬ 
pared to have sustained it. After having been withdrawn as a special point of 
evidence, it was again unexpectedly brought forward as the basis of a general ar¬ 
gument on the abstract question of the value of the chemical and physical charac¬ 
ters which commonly distinguish fossil from recent teeth. This molar, when sawn 
up, yielded all the characters of a recent tooth : the section was white, with glis¬ 
tening satiny lustre, full of gelatine, absolutely unadherent to the tongue, and per¬ 
fectly free from mineral impregnation, although coated with a layer of mangano- 
ferruginous incrustation, derived from a stratum freely permeable to moisture. 
The enamel was white and brilliant. It was the combination of these positive and 
negative characters, viewed in connexion with the physical condition of the deposit, 
which led Dr. Falconer to pronounce it to be recent, in contradistinction to a fossil 
tooth. To that opinion he still adheres. Nothing was adduced at the Conference 
to shake it in the least degree. The instances brought forward as exceptions, 
were all more or less graduated illustrations of the 'partial retention of the recent 
characters in fossil teeth, without a precise statement of the conditions under which 
they were found, to explain the cause, while in the detached molar the recent 
characters were absolute, the fossil characters being at the same time wholly wanting. 
Mr. Tomes, F.R.S., whose knowledge in this walk of investigation, invests his 
opinion with authority, held the same view, as did also Mr. Busk. That the teeth 
of extinct mammals are in many instances preserved in cave-deposits, in a remark¬ 
ably fresh condition, is well known, as are also the circumstances which contribute 
to the result. The same thing occasionally happens in quaternary deposits, where 
the stratum is impervious to water and thus favourable to the retention of gelatine. 
But is there a case on record, apart from the frozen soil of the arctic circle, where a 
tooth has lain for many thousand years, in an old quaternary gravel, imbedded in 
metallic oxides freely permeable to water, yet where it has eventually turned up 
absolutely unchanged, and fresh as a recent tooth ? Further, Dr. Falconer laid 
before the Conference several molars of Rhinoceros tichorhinus, procured by Mr. 
Nicholas Brady at Menchecourt from a bed of uncoloured sand, which were deeply 
infiltrated with metallic matter, and the ivory greatly altered. Fossil bones are 
admitted to be excessively rare at Moulin-Quignon (Antiquites Celtiques, tom. ii. 
p. 496). The only specimens seen by the Conference in M. de Perthes’ collection 
were two or three small fragments of elephant’s tusk, highly altered through loss of 
gelatine, coloured, and tinged internally with metallic patches. The fossil bones 
from all the deposits in the valley of the Somme are commonly much altered. The 
‘ detached molar’ stood out, exceptional in every respect. (H. F.) 
Note 34.—The specimen here referred to by M. de Quatrefages, was the uncoloured 
fragment conjectured at one time to be part of a tooth, and then to be part of a shell, 
of which the precise nature was left undetermined. (Vide ante Note 20.) 
Note 35.—Dr. Falconer remarked that of the two fossil specimens, from Anvers, 
put forward by M. Delesse, one of them, the canine, so far from being unaltered, 
adhered very strongly to the tongue, thus indicating that it had lost a very con¬ 
siderable portion of its gelatine, while the other, a sawn fang, although unadherent, 
was much altered in colour and had become yellow. He added (“ that the condi- 
“ tions must be comparable to make the argument urged by M. Delesse of any 
“weight; and that he could not conceive the prolonged sojourn of a tooth in the 
