to admit that it belonged to a remote antiquity."
Among the earlier discovered fossil remains of man, supposed to have a high antiquity, may be noticed "the fossil man of Denise." The find consisted of fragments of several human bones embedded in porous lava from the extinct volcano of Denise, near Le Puy (Haute-Loire). The chief interest attached to the discovery, if genuine, was that it made man contemporary with the mammoth, and coeval with the last eruptions of the Le Puy volcanoes. Several pieces of this lava containing more or fewer human bones were found, but the first described was in 1844 by M. Aymard, Conservator of Le Puy Museum. This specimen was found by a workman, and contained within its substance the frontal and other parts of the skull, as well as some lumbar vertebræ, a radius and some metatarsal bones. According to M. E. Sauvage (Rev. d'Anthropologie, 1872), who carefully studied the matter, the skull-bones presented the osteological characters of the Neanderthal-Spy race, viz. prominent superciliary ridges and glabella, surmounted by a low, retreating forehead. The authenticity of this fossil was generally admitted by all the competent authorities who examined it, among them being Sir Charles Lyell. But this conclusion was out of harmony with the theological beliefs of the time, and so, for a time, it became discredited, and like other discoveries of the kind failed to lead to further results.
