The Grottoes de Boissière are twelve in number, on the side of the Puy de Châteauneuf, commanding the road from Saint Nectaire to Marols, Puy de Dôme. They are excavated in the volcanic tufa, and are all much of the same dimensions; one, however, measures 28 feet by 12 feet, and is 7 feet high. Below the grottoes the slope of the hill is parcelled out into small fields or gardens by means of walls of stones laid one on another without mortar, showing that the inhabitants of these caves lived there permanently and cultivated the ground below their dwellings. [Footnote: There are others, Les Grottes de Rajah, in the same mass of rock, with near them an isolated rock carved about and supposed to have been an idol.] More curious still are the Grottoes de Jonas on the Couze, also in Puy de Dôme, near Cheix. They are in stages one range above another to the height of from 90 to 120 feet. The face of the mountain is precipitous, and is of a porous tufa full of holes. As many as sixty of these artificial caves remain; but there were at one time many more, that have been destroyed by the fall of the very friable volcanic rock. It is impossible to determine the period at which these caves were excavated; they were probably prehistoric to begin with, but were tenanted during the Middle Ages when--if not later--the tracks leading to them were cut in the tufa and stairs to connect the several stages. Then paths were bordered by walls as a protection, and fragments of the parapet remain. Probably it was during the English occupation of Guienne which extended into Auvergne, that a castle and a chapel were sculptured out of the living rock. At the same time a remarkable spiral staircase was contrived in like manner. Numerous relics of all periods--flint tools, bronze weapons, statuettes, and coins--have been found among the rubbish thrown out from these dens. [Footnote: G. Tournier, _Les Mégalithes et les Grottes des environs de S. Nectaire_. Paris, 1910.] On the Borne, in Haute Loire, dug out of the volcanic rock are several cave-dwellings. The caves at Conteaux are fourteen in number, the largest is divided into three compartments; each is 45 feet deep and 11 feet wide, but the usual dimension is from 28 to 36 feet. In all, the vault is rather over 6 feet high. An opening in the roof of one gave vent to smoke.