Pictographs of Arrows in French Caves

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THE mural paintings and engravings of the Pyrenean caves is the subject of a series of memoirs by Prof. E. Cartailhac and l'Abbé H. Breuil, now appearing in l'Anthropoidgie. In the current number is an account of the “Grotte des Forges” at Niaux, Ariege. The cave is a narrow gallery more than 1400 m. in length, with several short branches; at 6 n m. from the entrance a broad lateral gallery runs due south for a distance of 160 m., and terminates in a rotunda, the walls of which are decorated with bisons, horses, deer, wild goats, and groups of signs. There are no designs of animals in the first half of the main gallery, and only five at long intervals in the second. The authors write with enthusiasm concerning the rotunda. The paintings possess to a supreme degree the style of the period, and represent the same animals that were familiar to the Palaeolithic artists of the Pyrenees, the bisons being in the great majority. The drawings, which represent animals in profile, are; drawn with a brush in black pigment with a sure and exact touch, and the characteristic traits of the animals are conscientiously delineated. The best polychrome frescoes are to be seen in the caves at Altamira, in Spain, but Niaux is unexcelled in its line work. The black pigment consisted of a mixture of charcoal and oxide of manganese worked up with grease.