Aurignac is to be referred to a period, coeval witii the most Ancient geological deposits in which the products of human industry have been found,—the diluvial beds of St. Acheul and of Abbeville,— that the violent phenomena of that diluvian period, and the great cataclysm[1] connected with those beds, have not affected the original conditions of this cavern? It is obvious, in fact, that nothing has been disturbed, and that, not only have a simple slab of stone a few centimetres in thickness, and a thin covering of loose earth, sufficed to preserve intact the sepulchre itself, but also that outside the cave, the relics of the funeral repasts and the various implements and arms left by the human inhabitants have not been disturbed.
It has been observed above that, from its isolated position in the mountain range of Aurignac, the mountain of Fajoles is completely protected from the streams and torrents of the surrounding country. Nevertheless, upon looking at the geological map of France, we find that the colour indicating the great alluvial deposits of the Garonne, Adour, &c.,[2] is wanting in the interval between the little valleys which commence on the plateau of Lanemézan. A very slight elevation of the borders of this plateau has been sufficient to protect the whole of the intermediate region, (more than 200 square leagues,) within which are comprised tbe district of Aurignac, firom the invasion of this diluvium or Pyrenean drift.
- ↑ I am here obliged to repeat what I have already said elsewhere: viz., that the grand words, revolution of the globe, cataclysm, universal perturbation, general catastrophes, &c., have been introduced by a sort of abuse into the technical language of Science, seeing that they tend to give an exaggerated significance to phenomena, which geographically have been very limited in extent. These phenomena, however stupendous they may appear to us, as manifested within the limits of our sensible horizon, are reduced to very little when brought down by actual calculation to their relative importance as regards the whole surface of the globe. Everything moreover, indicates that the successive production of these partial accidents forms part of the normal conditions of the course of nature, and that the great harmony seen in the physical and organic evolutions on the surface of the earth, has in no case been affected by them.
Aristotle fully comprehended those alternating movements of the land, which at several intervals have changed the relations of continents and seas. He also reduced to its regional proportions the deluge of Deucalion, so embellished and magnified by the fictions of poetry. This great naturalist appears to have been obliged to combat the fantastic conceptions of the revolutionist philosophers of his time; and the rude apostrophe which he addressed to them, "ridiculum enim est, propter parvas et momentaneas permutationes, movere ipsum totum." (Meteorol. 1. i. c. 2.), might well, after two thousand years, be applied to some among us, geologists and paleontologists of the present day.
- ↑ These alluvial beds or diluvium occupying the bottom of the valleys of the Garonne and of the Adour, should not be confounded with the pebbles and argillaceous deposits, lying at a higher level on terraces more or less continuous, ordinarily on the left side of the course of the rivers. These deposits, in which the granitic, ophitic, and other feldspathic pebbles, are almost always in a decomposed state, belong to a more ancient period, or that of the origincd excavation of the valleys. At the bottom of the valleys of the Garonne and of the Adour, the granitic, and other pebbles of the Pyrenean drift, are numerous and perfectly preserved. None of the kind are met with in the little valleys descending from the plateau of Lanemézan.
