On a fragment of a staff of office from the Madeleine Cave is engraved a man between two horses’ heads (Fig. 46). On a reindeer antler is represented a woman with flat breasts and very high hips, followed by a serpent; a shell from the crag near Walton-on-the-Naze had a human face roughly engraved on one side. The Abby, Bourgeois, in the excavations so fruitful of results at Rochebertier, found a rough carving of a human face (Fig. 47); M. Piette at Mas d’Azil found a little bust of a woman, carved on the root of the tooth of a horse. This statuette had a low forehead, a prominent nose, a retreating chin, and breasts of the negress type of the present day; characteristics quite unlike those of the skeletons taken from this cave or those near it. We wonder whether the artist meant to represent the features of a race other than his own.26 M. du Bouchet mentions a rough sketch engraved on a flint discovered near Dax; the workman, doubtless daunted by the difficulties of his task, had abandoned it unfinished. It is, however, easy to tell what it was meant for. The skull is low and flat, the nose but slightly prominent, the eyes are oblique, and neither the mouth nor the chin are finished. The magnificent collection of the Marquis de Vibraye contains a little figure from Laugerie, representing a nude woman without arms. Thin and stiff, she is chiefly remarkable for the exaggerated size of the sexual organs, and for some peculiar protuberances on the loins. We dwell upon the former peculiarity, because it is so far extremely rare, whereas certain relics of the Greeks and Romans, in spite of the comparatively advanced civilization of these two great races, are such that they can only be exhibited in private museums. Such depravity as this implies was then quite an exception among the cave-men, and but for the one example I have just mentioned, I have no phallic representations to refer to except the few from the Massenat collection, which were shown at the Exhibition of 1889. [Illustration: 46.] Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madeleine Cave. [Illustration: 47.] Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the Rochebertier Cave (Charente). We must not close this account of the art efforts of the men of the Stone age without mentioning the remarkable discovery by M. Siette, of flints covered with lines and geometrical designs colored with red chalk. These are the very earliest examples of the art of painting which have hitherto come to our knowledge. They bear witness to a remarkable progress made by our remote ancestors of the valleys of the Pyrenees. We cannot more appropriately close this chapter than by quoting the magnificent verse of Lucretius, which brings before us, better than could a long description, the condition of these men, and the humble starting-point from which humanity has advanced to achieve its immortal destiny: