Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/818

798 But, profoundly convinced of the reality of his discovery, the Abbé Bourgeois did not lose heart on suffering this partial repulse. He continued his researches with vigor, and again, in 1872, provided now with better specimens, he raised the question at the Brussels Congress. There he made some headway among the best experts. But on the commission which was specially appointed to examine the flints were several members who knew but very little directly about the manner of working on flint, and they either hesitated or passed an adverse judgment. Hence the question was not definitively settled. This result, half success, half failure, stimulated the ardor of the accomplished naturalist; he continued his investigations, and so succeeded in collecting for the Anthropological Exposition a remarkable series of flint implements which dispels all doubt.

This collection was made up of flints which beyond a doubt had undergone the action of fire. They are full of cracks, and even quite discolored. With these are other flints, far more numerous, which have simply been split by fire. Among them are some which unquestionably have been neatly and regularly retouched on one or both of their margins. Every one who has carefully and impartially examined them has admitted that the second dressing (les retailles) was certainly intentional, and consequently that it was the work of an intelligent creature.

It remains to determine the age to which these flints belong. They were collected at Thenay, in formations clearly in situ and intact, and belonging to the formation known among geologists as "calcaires de Beauce"; but now these calcaires de Beauce constitute the lower strata of the Middle Tertiary. This is shown by the fauna which the Abbé Bourgeois exhibited in connection with the flints. This fauna, which comes from the sands of the Orléanais, which directly overlie the calcaires de Beauce, comprises great mastodons and dinotheriums belonging to the Lower Miocene. Then there is the acerotherium, a genus akin to the rhinoceros, and which was found in the very same stratum as the fire-split and redressed flints.

It results, therefore, from the Abbé Bourgeois's researches, that during the Middle Tertiary there existed a creature, precursor of man, an anthropopithecus, which was acquainted with fire and could make use of it for splitting flints. It also knew how to trim the flint-flakes thus produced and to convert them into tools.

This curious and interesting discovery for a long time stood alone, and arguments were even drawn from this isolatedness to favor its rejection. Fortunately, another French observer, M, J. B. Rames, has found in the vicinity of Aurillac (Cantal) in the strata of the upper part of the Middle Tertiary—here, too, in company with mastodons and dinotheriums, though of more recent species than those of Thenay—flints which also have been redressed intentionally. Here, however, the flints are no longer split by fire, but by tapping. It is something more than a continuation, it is a development. Among the few