projected work fell to M. Lartet, and, to enable him to do so effectually, Mr. Christy's trustees supplied the funds. But, alas! in January 1871, M. Lartet also died, before the work was finished. Ultimately it was carried out and published in 1875, by a number of Christy's friends, under the editorship of Professor Rupert Jones. Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ is largely made up of essays on the various phases of the culture of the reindeer hunters, together with descriptions of the customs of modern savages, supposed to throw light on the early inhabitants of Aquitaine. The chief value of this magnificent work now lies in its eighty-seven plates of illustrations drawn on a large scale. From what it contains we can imagine how much archæological science lost by the premature death of its original authors.
The early discoveries of Lartet and Christy in the Dordogne caves, and the scientific recognition of the strange flint objects found by M. Boucher de Perthes in the gravels of the Somme valley as the genuine tools of an ancient race of inhabitants, coming so prominently before the scientific world much about the same time (1858–1863), roused a spirit of research among French prehistorians, which has ever since continued at an accelerated pace. It was speedily ascertained that their country was exceptionally rich in vestiges of the old Aquitainian civilization, brought to light from the caves and rock-shelters of the Vézère valley. In 1908 M. Déchelette
