of a few small human figurines, sculptured in ivory, showing great artistic merits, under stratigraphical conditions, which he regarded as pre-Solutréen, and in which no drawings were found—the latter having appeared only in later strata.
Perhaps the most novel discovery was that in the cave of Niaux (Ariège) animal figures, similar in design to those on the walls, had been traced on the now hardened mud of the floor. Such figures were observed in several places in the inner recesses of the cave, especially under low overhanging rocks where visitors could not walk; and, singular to relate, they remained as clear and distinct as if they had been recently executed. Among them the following animals are represented, viz. bison, ox, horse, trout, and man, but of the last only a footprint—surely one of the most marvellous of footprints on "the sands of time."
The system of human economy founded in these early days was the outcome of the free play of natural laws little affected by the principles of religion or ethics. The reflections of these Palæolithic folk had probably for the most part to do with the habits of the animals they hunted, and the strategic means by which they could be waylaid and captured. Of agriculture, the rearing of domestic animals, the arts of spinning and weaving, and the manufacture of pottery they appear to have been absolutely ignorant. But yet, in an environment of such primitive resources and
