334 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



indeed in the manner in which he manufactured his arrow-heads. 

 It took him, perhaps, a day or two to get near his lurge, so that it 

 would be very provoking to him to lose his game, and it would, 

 therefore, be an economy of time to bestow a considerable period 

 on the manufacture of arrows which would be tolerably true, and 

 would give him a chance of killing his game. This being so, 

 nothing should be taken for an arrow-head which did not present 

 the indubitable features of that weapon. The scraper, which was 

 well known in Europe, was not much represented in Africa, and 

 the specimen which lie (Sir John Lubbock) had got from the Cape 

 of Good Hope was the only specimen of the type which was 

 known. Sir John also exhibited several stones, with res-pect to 

 which he said there was a notion that they were thunderbolts, and 

 in consequence they were used as charms, and also ground down 

 and drunk in water as medicine. It was only when the remem- 

 brance of these things passed into tradition, and they had ceased 

 to be used in every-day life, that they became mysterious, and 

 were used for medicine and as charms. The depth at which 

 these stones were found showed that they were not of yesterday, 

 but could not be taken as evidence that they were of great antiq- 

 uity. Exhibiting an axe of stone from Western Africa, Sir John 

 placed beside it several similar weapons from various parts of the 

 world, pointing out that they were all of a very simple charac- 

 ter. In conclusion, he objected to the opinion which was very 

 generally entertained, that anthropologists considered that all 

 stone implements belonged to the stone age, that all bronze arti- 

 cles belonged to the bronze age, and all iron articles to the iron 

 age. Still, considering the abundance of ores of iron in the dis- 

 trict from which his specimens had been brought, and the facility 

 with which they could be smelted and metals obtained, and yet 

 stone had been made use of, they must believe that the stone 

 axes belonged to the time before the negroes of the Cape had be- 

 come acquainted with metals. 



FLINT FLAKE CORE. 



Mr. John Plant, F.R.A.S., at the meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation, read a " Note on a Flint Flake Core from the River Gravel 

 of the Irwell, Salt'ord, Manchester." He said the upper valley of 

 the Irwell was overspread with till and sandy layers. Terraces 

 above 200 feet in elevation were very distinct in places. The 

 river now flowed over the beds of new red sandstone, having con- 

 tracted its bed from at least a mile to about 60 yards. The upper 

 terrace was composed of sand and gravel of older age than the 

 silts which fringe the banks. The pebbles of gravel were mainly 

 derived from the pebble-beds and eroded till ; others were flat- 

 tened pebbles from the coal-measure. Throughout these pebbles 

 it might be said there were no flints, buts of chert only from 

 mountain limestone. The weapons of Lancashire were neolithic 

 in character, so that the occurrence of a flint flake was remarkable 

 from its site in the barren desert of gravel and sand of the Irwell. 



