29 



one of the pieces of "flint" found in the baskets by Lat 

 Billardicre was really a piece of pyrites is by no means 

 small. That such a piece was not correctly designated as 

 such, but simply called flint, is more than probable; in 

 fact, the contrary would have been more astounding, con- 

 sidering that these men, however good sailors and ex- 

 plorers they may have been, probably never noticed such 

 details which would even tax the power of observation of 

 the modern scientist to the utmost. 



This pretty well exhausts the purposes for which the 

 Tasmanian stone implements were used, and the only 

 question which remains to be examined is, how were the 

 Archceolithes produced. Again we turn to Scott for in- 

 formation. He states that he had "seen the men sitting 

 for an hour or so, at one time, chipping one flint with 

 another." Here we come to another stumbling block, was 

 it really one "flint" that was used to work or chip the 

 other "flint," that is to say, was the "hammer" used in 

 the production of an implement of the same material a« 

 the. latter, that is to say, a cherty rock, or is it not pos- 

 sible that the "hammer" was of a different material alto- 

 gether, n is a favourite theory of numerous collectors to 

 assume that certain specimens belonging to my group, Mb. 

 were used as "hammer stones." I have my great douots 

 as to the correctness of this view, but other specimens be- 

 longing to group N most forcibly suggest the idea of being 

 iised as hammerstones- A typical specimen is here repro- 

 duced. 



FIG. 34. 



N. Hammerstones. South Arm. 



On the other hand it seems very improbable that 

 these clumsy Diabas pebbles could be used to produce the 

 neat trimming sqme of the more highly finished specimeii'ii 

 show, although it cannot be denied that they were good 

 and serviceable implements to strike off the first flakes 

 from a larger block. It is, perhaps, probable that the 

 larger spherical hammerstones were used to detach tiie 

 first flakes, and that more handy, sharply-edged pieces of 

 chert were used in working and trimming the specimens 

 thus obtained- We might imagine that the common 

 angular fragments or flakes that fell off when a large block 

 was broken were used for such a purpose. It seems, for 

 instance, more than probable that the numerous pieces 

 lying about in the quarry on Coal Hill (Melton Mowbray) 

 were used for trimming other specimens; the presence of 

 almost countless fragments, whose edges show unmistakable 

 signs of use, is otherwise quite inexplicable. I am afraid 

 that this question will never be satisfactorily solved, and 



