cave-bear, lion, rhinoceros, hyæna, mammoth, bison, horse, and other animals, and palæolithic implements, like those of Périgord, extended from the plateau (_d_) outside into (_b_) the cave. On the outside he met with ashes, and burnt and split bones, which proved that it had been used as a feasting-place by the palæolithic hunters; within he detected no traces of charcoal, and no traces of the hyænas, which were abundant outside. Inside he met with a few human bones in the earth which Bonnemaison had disturbed, which were in the same mineral condition as those of the extinct animals, and he, therefore, inferred that they were of the same age. Such is the summary of the facts which M. Lartet discovered. He has, of his own personal knowledge, only proved that Aurignac was occupied by a tribe of hunters during the palæolithic age, and that it had been used as a burial-place. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--Diagram of the Cave of Aurignac.] Is he further justified in concluding that the period of palæolithic occupation coincides with that in which the burial took place? Bonnemaison’s recollections may be estimated at their proper value by the significant fact, that, in the short space of eight years intervening between the discovery and the exploration, he had forgotten where the skeletons had been buried. And even if his account be true in the minutest detail, it does not afford a shadow of evidence in favour of the cave having been a place of sepulchre in palæolithic times, but merely that it had been so used at some time or another. If we turn to the diagram constructed by M. Lartet to illustrate his views (“Ann. des Sc. Nat. Zool.,” 4^e sér., t. xv., pl. 10), and made for the most part from Bonnemaison’s recollections; or to the amended diagram (Fig. 70) given by Sir Charles Lyell (“Antiquity of Man,” 1st ed., Fig. 25), we shall see that the skeletons are depicted _above_ the stratum (_b_) containing the palæolithic implements and pleistocene mammalia; and therefore, according to the laws of geological evidence, they must have been buried after the subjacent deposit was accumulated. The previous disturbance of the cave-earth does away with the conclusion, that the few human bones found by M. Lartet are of the same age as the extinct mammalia in the deposit. The absence of charcoal inside was quite as likely to be due to the fact that a fire kindled inside would fill the grotto with smoke, while outside the palæolithic savage could feast in comfort, as to the view that the ashes are those of funereal feasts in honour of the dead within, held after the slab had been placed at the entrance. The absence of the remains of hyænas from the interior is also negative evidence, disproved by subsequent examination.