Proceedings. 89 



Evening Meeting. — April 16th, 1886. 

 Mr. Cooper exhibited plates oi Mesembryanthemum ficiforme 

 and Aloe inermis. 



Mr. Edward Lovett read the following paper ; — 



Notes on the Oeigin and Development of Flint and 

 Stone Implements. 



The subject of this short paper is one to which a great 

 amount of work and investigation has been devoted, and it is 

 one of so wide and general a scope that it would be impossible 

 as well as unnecessary to go into the history of stone imple- 

 ments in a single lecture. I have therefore confined my 

 observations to a few ideas as to the causes which may have 

 called into being the earliest form of implements and weapons 

 with which we are acquainted; the progress which marked 

 the introduction of skill and superior workmanship into the 

 fabrication of those implements, and also such especial points 

 of interest connecting this old pre-historical period with the 

 present as may suggest themselves in the examination of this 

 interesting subject. 



It is perhaps almost impossible for the mind to imagine the 

 condition and surroundings of the earliest human inhabitants 

 of the earth, for as flint and stone weapons generally exhibit 

 a gradual development from the crudest to the most finished 

 types, it would be only natural to suppose that there was a 

 period even earlier than that of the palaeolithic era when man 

 had not the remotest idea of making any sort of weapon, but 

 simply used the first natural stone that came to hand in his 

 rude endeavours to perform some mechanical act. Now this 

 conjecture is not only a probable one, but it is borne out by 

 actual recent examples. In Moseley's work on the ' Challenger ' 

 Expedition (p. 357), he states of the natives of Cape York, 

 Australia : — " Their only stone implements are a round, flat- 

 topped stone, and another conical one, suitable to be grasped 

 in the hands. This is used as a pestle with which to pound 

 their beans on the flat stone. Both stones are merely selected, 

 and not shaped in any way." I could quote numerous other 



