16 



It seems that in a time far remote the Cave-dwellers of Pe"rigord found it con- 

 venient to scrape the Pveindeer-skins with a form of instrument which the modern 

 Esquimaux finds to be also suited to the same purpose. Of the inhabitants of the 

 Somme Valley, we only know that they also practised the same re-chipping of the 

 flake to give it a rounded or blunted end. 



The resemblances existing among the yet more highly finished forms may be 

 illustrated by a polished axe of the so-called " Celtic Period" from Prance, and 

 others from England, British India, South America, and the Southern Pacific. 

 (See figs. 8-12, page 15.) 



Manufacture of Stone Implements. Owing to the prehistoric antiquity of the 

 flint implements of the Old World, we have no description of how they were made. 

 Prom the New World, however, we have the direct testimony of an eye-witness as 

 to the manufacture of flaked and chipped weapons in obsidian. The process is 

 described by the old Hispano-American historian, Torquemada, and has been 

 quoted in Mr. E. B. Tylor's 'Anahuac' pp. 331 &c.*; and for an exact and most 



* ' Anahuac ; or Mexico and the Mexicans,' 8vo, London, 1861. " Some of the old Spanish writers on 

 Mexico give a tolerably full account of the manner in which the Obsidian Knives, &c., were made by the Aztecs." 

 .... "Torquemada (' Monarquia Indiana,' Seville, 1615) says, (free translation) 'They had and still 

 have workmen who make knives of a certain black stone or flint, which it is a most wonderful and admirable 

 thing to see them make out of the stone ; and the ingenuity which invented this art is much to be praised. 

 They are made and got out of the stone (if one can explain it) in this manner. One of these Indian workmen 

 sits down upon the ground, and takes a piece of this black stone, which is like jet, and hard as flint, and is a 

 stone which might be called precious, more beautiful and brilliant than alabaster or jasper, and so much so 

 that of it are made tablets and mirrors. The piece they take is about 8 inches long or rather more, and as 

 thick as one's leg or rather less, and cylindrical ; they have a stick as large as the shaft of a lance, and three 

 cubits or rather more in length ; and at the end of it they fasten firmly another piece of wood, 8 inches long, 

 to give weight to this part ; then pressing their naked feet together, they hold the stone as with a pair of 

 pincers, or a vice of a carpenter's bench. They take the stick (which is cut off smooth at the end) with 

 both hands, and set it well home against the edges of the front of the stone (y ponenlo a versar con el canto 

 de la frente de la piedra), which also is cut smooth in the part ; and then they press it against their breast, 

 and with the force of the pressure there flies off a knife, with its point, and edge on each side, as neatly 

 as if one were to make them of a turnip with a sharp knife, or of iron in the fire. Then they sharpen it on 

 stone, using a bone to give it a very fine edge ; and in a very short time these workmen will make more 

 than twenty knives in the aforesaid manner. They come out of the same shape as our barbers' lancets, 

 except they have a rib up the middle, and have a slight graceful curve towards the point. They will cut 

 and shave the hair the first time they are used, at the first cut nearly as well as a steel razor, but they lose 

 their edge at the second cut, and so to finish shaving one's beard or hair, one after another has to be used ; 

 though indeed they are cheap, and spoiling them is of no consequence. Many Spaniards, both regular and 

 secular clergy, have been shaved with them, especially at the beginning of the colonization of these realms, 



