that human antiquity is not proven from these relics, for two
reasons:--First, because the indications in the deposits inclosing the
flints point clearly to a "turbulent diluvial action," and therefore it
is possible for a violent incursion of the ocean to have taken place in
the historic period, and to have mixed up the more recent works of man
with the previously buried bones or relics of a pre-historic period; and
secondly, because the different geological deposits do not necessarily
prove time, but only succession,--two schools of geology interpreting
all similar phenomena differently, as relating to the time required.

The last position would be admitted by few scientific geologists at
the present day, as the evidence for time, though inferential from the
deposits known to us, is held generally to be conclusive. On the first
point, Professor Rogers has the weight of authority against him: all the
great masters of the science, who have examined the formation and the
deposits of the surrounding country, denying that there is any evidence
of an incursion of the ocean of such a nature, during the historic
period.]

The chain of evidence in regard to this important question seems to be
filled out by a recent discovery of M. Edouard Lartet in Aurignac, in
the South of France, on the head-waters of the Garonne. As we have just
observed, the weak point in M. de Perthes's discoveries was the absence
of human bones in the deposits investigated, though this might have been
accounted for by the withdrawal of human beings from the floods of the
period. M. Lartet's investigations have fortunately been conducted in a
spot which was above the reach of the ordinary inundations of the Drift
Period, and whither human beings might have fled for refuge, or where
they might have lived securely during long spaces of time.

Some ten years since, in Aurignac, (Haute Garonne,) in the
_Arrondissement_ of St. Gaudens, near the Pyrenees, a cavern was
discovered in the nummulitic rock. It had been concealed by a heap
of fragments of rock and vegetable soil, gradually detached and
accumulated, probably by atmospheric agency. In it were found the
human remains, it was estimated, of seventeen individuals, which were
afterwards buried formally by the order of the mayor of Aurignac. Along
with the bones were discovered the teeth of mammals, both carnivora and
herbivora; also certain small perforated corals, such as were used by
many ancient people