338 KANSAS ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 



Tasmanian aborigines are of the simplest character, rarely symmet- 

 rical, and more like the earliest Paleolithic flint implements of Europe. 

 He could do no more than strike the flakes off from one side only of a 

 stone, but there was some skill exhibited even in this crude method. 

 Those stones were immediately grasped in the hand and never fixed 

 in any sort of a handle." They were in the next stage to that of the 

 Seris, who used the natural pebbles without any modification what- 

 ever. The Tasmanians had not yet attained the stage of the elaborate 

 and artistic chipping of stone, to say nothing of polishing stone. 

 They had but taken the first step in the artificial modification of this 

 material. 



What impresses all observers is the enormous amount of the re- 

 mains of the stone art that are scattered all over the world. Every 

 one is aware of the great quantities of stone arrow- and spear-points, 

 hatchets and hammers that have been found all over this country, 

 from the north to the south, from the east to the west. Hundreds of 

 private collections and the great public museums attest the industry 

 of the pro- European Americans. Doctor Abbot collected from the 

 gravel banks of the Delaware over 20,000 rough-chipped implements, 

 and deposits of 100 or more were not uncommon. As the Marquise 

 de Naidailac well says, in his "Prehistoric Peoples" : "When we con- 

 sider the discoveries connected with the stone age as a whole, we are 

 struck with the immense number of weapons of every kind and of 

 every variety of form found in different regions of the globe. The 

 Roman domination extended over a great part of the old world, 

 lasting for many centuries, and left tokens of its presence and indus- 

 try. But numerous as are these relics of the Romans, they are far in- 

 ferior in number to objects dating from prehistoric times ; for flints 

 worked by the hand of man have been picked up by thousands." 

 Throughout Europe, which has been the best explored, of course, 

 worked flints are often found in large numbers in one place, either in 

 workshops or in caches of deposit, attesting to specialists in manu- 

 facture, and that extensive trade was carried on in such commodities. 

 Besides these deposits, other thousands have been picked up on the 

 surface or plowed up in the fields or dug from the earth. The skill 

 exhibited in the working of flint, and in such quantities, when we 

 consider that these early men had no knowledge of metals, is very re- 

 markable. No metal was known till bronze came in, after thousands 

 of years of the polished-stone period. And this is the more remark- 

 able when we consider the stone carvings of the temples of Mexico, 

 Yucatan, and Peru, which were done with flint implements, for the 

 few copper tools found would have been quite unequal to the task. 

 There was thus very early developed a skill that excites our astonish- 



