126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
They corresponded to other deer’s-horn implements found in various. 
parts of the shafts and galleries. But Canon Greenwell noted that, 
while in the case of the two implements specially observed by him, 
the handle of each lay towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines 
which formed the blades of the picks pointed towards each other, 
suggesting, as he conceived, that in all probability they had been 
used respectively by a right and a left-handed miner. The day’s 
work over, the men had laid down their tools ready for the next 
day’s work ; meanwhile the roof fell in, and the picks were left un- 
disturbed through all the intervening centuries, till the reopening 
of the gallery. 
The circumstance, though worthy of note, among the other details 
recorded by an accurate observer, could not in itself be regarded as 
of great weight in its bearing on the general question of the origin 
or prevalence of right or left-handedness. But any evidence tend- 
ing to throw light on the usage in prehistoric times has a signifi- 
cance and value in reference to the original and very general use of 
the right hand where special dexterity is required. The question of the 
reason for such preference was brought under the notice of Carlyle 
by painful experience near the close of his life. It was his sad mis- 
fortune, when he had reached the advanced age of seventy-five, to 
lose the use of his right hand. The period of life was too late to 
turn with any hope of success to the untrained left hand ; and more 
than one entry in his journal refers to the irreparable loss. But 
one curious embodiment of the reflections suggested by this privation 
is thus recorded upwards of a year after experience had familiarized 
him with all that the loss involved :—‘‘ Curious to consider the insti- 
tution of the Right Hand among universal mankind ; probably the 
very oldest human institution that exists, indispensable to all human 
coéperation whatsoever. He that has seen three mowers, one of 
whom is left-handed, trying to work together, and how impossible it 
is, has witnessed the simplest form of an impossibility, which but 
for the distinction of a ‘right hand,’ would have pervaded all human 
things. Have often thought of all that,— never saw it so clearly as 
this morning while out walking, unslept and dreary enough in the 
windy sunshine. How old? Old! I wonder if there is any peo- 
ple barbarous enough not to have this distinction of hands; no 
human Cosmos possible to be even begun without it. Oldest 
Hebrews, &c., writing from right to left, are as familiar with the 
