14 Annals of the Soutli African Museum. 



have had a beginning, that these flints were the first attempt of man 

 at trimming and working stone for his requirements. This discovery, 

 followed by similar ones in Europe, led many Antiquarians to adopt 

 the theory. 



It may not he out of place to give here an explanation of the making 

 of tools by blows or percussion. 



If the blow is direct and delivered with great force the detached 

 part is not bounded by a plane surface. Close to the part struck 

 there is produced a conchoidai fracture, which gives rise to a 

 "bulb of percussion." That is to say, one of the faces of the 

 detached part presents at its thicker extremity a convex swelling 

 corresponding to a concave cavity in the matrix or nucleus. This 

 I may add, in passing, invariably occurs not only with flint nodules 

 but also with all kinds of rocks used for that purpose in South 

 Africa. 



This conchoidai fracture seems, however, to be altogether absent 

 in the flint " eoliths." M. M. Boule has also shown pretty con- 

 clusively that mechanical agents easily and naturally transform flint 

 nodules into ''eoliths."''' The discovery of mechanically made 

 "pseudo-eoliths" has undoubtedly modified the views of many of 

 those who, endowing primitive races with characters which could 

 have resulted only from evolutionary progress, were inclined to find 

 in these so-called implements with "trimmed edges," "double-," 

 "crescent-shaped," "hollow-end," "horse-shoe" scrapers the most 

 ancient attempts of man at the manufacture of tools. 



I may add that with the human remains of the Neanderthal-Spy — • 

 Le Moustier, et La Chapelle aux Saints race — remains of a man 

 of an inferior type, more closely connected with the anthropoid 

 apes than with any other ancient human group, such as the "Cro- 

 Magnon" — were found stone implements, not eolithic, but of the 

 Acheulean and Mousterian types. 



I would not have entered into this thorny question were it not 

 that it is claimed that " eoliths " are found, among other places, near 

 Pretoria, Transvaal, and also that they have been figured as such.f 



It is therefore not out of place to give here the history of that 

 discovery. The late Mr. G. Leith made in the neighbourhood of 

 Pretoria a collection of stone implements, mostly from the ironstone 

 gravels through which the Aapies Eiver flows. Mr. Nichol Brown, a 

 co-worker of Harrison of the Kent Plateau eolith fame, had occasion 

 to inspect that collection in 1897. He showed me some of these 



* M. Boule, " L'origine des eolithes," L'Anthropologie, 1905, p. 253. 

 f G. Leith, " On the Caves, Shell-mound.s and Stone Implements of South 

 Africa," Journ. of Anthropolog. Instit., i. , 1899, pi. 18. 



