Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1875 — Interesting and Important Discoveries in France. [ARTICLE]

Interesting and Important Discoveries in France.

We learn from La Forge (Aube) that an interesting discovery has just been made in Les Corbieres by the engineer of the copper and lead mines near Tuchan. Having remarked at the top of .the mountain which overlooks the village of Padern a grbtto presenting the character of a dwelling of the prehistoric epoch, researches were made, which have been crowned with complete success. By the side of fragments of skeletons of wild animals and of human bones, the abuhdance of which shows a long series of generations, the subterranean excavations have brought to light articles of rudely-constructed pottery, daggers made of sharpened bones, and, above all. pieces of shell carved into hooks and pierced with a hole, so as to be hung round the neck of the ewner, .evidently servfcg for knives in those remote ages. The use of tools made of shell is a fact

which has not yet been demonstrated in the antediluvian caverns. It would lead to the supposition that the vast plains of Le Rousillon, from Perpignan as far as the environs of Estagal, were formerly the bed of the sea, and that the alluvium of the Tet and rhe Agly is relatively recent. All the objects discovered have been offered by M. Barnier to the Museum of Natural History at Toulouse.—Galignani’s Messenger.