ot
only all over France, but over England and Germany. Many learned men
belonging to various scientific bodies, and noteworthy among others,
Messrs. Milne-Edwards and De Quatrefages, took the affair very much to
heart, demonstrated the incontestable authenticity of the bone in
question, and became--to use the phrase then recognized in England--the
most ardent supporters of the "jawbone question."

To the eminent geologists of the United Kingdom who looked upon the fact
as certain--Messrs. Falconer, Buck, Carpenter, and others--were soon
united the learned men of Germany, and among those in the first rank,
the most eager, the most enthusiastic, was my worthy uncle, Professor
Hardwigg.

The authenticity of a human fossil of the Quaternary period seemed then
to be incontestably demonstrated, and even to be admitted by the most
skeptical.

This system or theory, call it what you will, had, it is true, a bitter
adversary in M. Elie de Beaumont. This learned man, who holds such a
high place in the scientific world, holds that the soil of
Moulin-Quignon does not belong to the diluvium but to a much less
ancient stratum, and, in accordance with Cuvier in this respect, he
would by no means admit that the human species was contemporary with the
animals of the Quaternary epoch. My worthy uncle, Professor Hardwigg, in
concert with the great majority of geologists, had held firm, had
disputed, discussed, and finally, after considerable talking and
writing, M. Elie de Beaumont had been pretty well left alone in his
opinions.

We were familiar with all the details of this discussion, but were far
from being aware then that since our departure the matter had entered
upon a new phase. Other similar jawbones, though belonging to
individuals of varied types and very different natures, had been found
in the movable grey sands of certain grottoes in France, Switzerland,
and Belgium; together with arms, utensils, tools, bones of children, of
men in the prime of life, and of old men. The existence of men in the
Quaternary period became, therefore, more positive every day.

But this was far from being all. New remains, dug up from the Pliocene
or Tertiary deposits, had enabled the more far-seeing or audacious among
learned men to assign even a far greater degree of antiquity to the
human race. These remains, it is true, were not those of men; that is,
were not the bones of men, but objects decidedly having served the human
race: shinbon