NOTICE OF THE BLACKMORE MUSEUM, SALISBURY, ENGLAND. 



OPENED SEPTEMBEK THE 5tH, 1867. 



Time, which antiquales antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared 

 these minor monuments.^' — Sir Thomas BrowNK. 



The Blackmore Musenm was founded at Salisbury, by Mr. William Black- 

 more, of Liverpool and London, in 1864. The public are admitted free upon 

 davs appointed by the committee of the Salisbury and South Wilts Museum, 

 who have been constituted the governing body by Mr. Blackmore, subject, 

 however, to the annual consent of the trustees, who are tlie founder, his brother. 

 Dr. Blackmore, and his brother-in-law, Mr. E. T. Stevens. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



The collection mainly consists of specimens belonging to the stono age of 

 different countries. 



It has been well remarked that ^' these implements of stone are to bo regarded 

 as indicating a grade of civilization, rather than any definite antiquity." One 

 object of the founder of the Blackmore Museum accordingly has been, an attempt 

 to illustrate the use and application of the rude weapons, implements, and orna- 

 ments of antiquity, by exhibiting, side by side with them, similar specimens in 

 use among existing races of mankind. 



The general result of this arrangement is, that a striking resemblance can bo 

 observed in the modes by which the simple wants of a common nature have been 

 supplied among people widely severed from each other in point of time, no less 

 than by geograpliical distribution. 



Although this may be the first impression conveyed by a glance at the Black- 

 more and similar collections, more careful examination will show that special 

 types (and in some instances special objects) occur in particular districts, and 

 that frequently typical points of difference exist between groups of objects 

 assio-ned to the same period and people, and obtained from spots almost close to 

 each other. Tlius in the case of two localities near Salisbury, there is a differ- 

 ence in type between the group of flint implemeilts found in the drift -gravel at 

 Bemerton and tlie group found in the drift-gravel at Milford Hill. 



Taken as a whole, however, the flint implements of the drift have well-marked 

 characteristics; nevertheless, in the Blackmore collection certain specimens from 

 an American tumulus agree very closely with the usual drift types. Very drift- 

 like implements have also been found in certain bone-caves, yet in each case the 

 attention is chiefly arrested by the aberrant character of the specimens. 



There is a class of flint implements known as " scrapers," one variety of 

 which, usually large, thick-backed, and with a broad scraping edge, is found in 

 the drift ; it occurs again in cave deposits, as for instance in Le Mtmsticr, 

 Dordogne, and also with slight modification among ordinary surface specimens, 

 although it ceases then to be a typical form. On the other hand, the typo of 

 "iicr*per" so abundant on the smiace occm-s, although rarelv. in the drift. 



