I0 g KELIQUUE 



A. PLATE XXIII. 



We have here (1) a small Mortar-stone of sandstone*, (2) a piece of naturally 

 hollowed sandstone, which may possibly have served as a kind of Mortar, (3) a 

 Ruhber of soft stone, and (4) a Mortar-stone of quartzite. Les Eyzies, La Made- 

 lame, and Laugerie Basse have yielded these interesting relics of the Cave-folk, 

 connected certainly with their habits of life, though not easy of exact definition 

 as to their uses. 



We have already (at pages 59-62) stated almost all we know about these 

 Mortar-stones ; but we may add that M. Leplay, Commissioner-General of the 

 International Exposition of 1867, has informed us that he has seen in the Ural 

 region of Siberia stone Mortars, similar to those from La Madelaine and Les 

 Eyzies, used by the children for breaking Hazel-nuts and crushing the seeds of 

 the Cembro Pinef. Mr. Eranks has shown us a sketch of a similar round 

 Mortar-stone from Guinea (Africa), 2f inches in diameter, 1^ inch thick, with a 

 hollow 34 m h wide and f inch deep. 



With respect to the Rubber-stone, we may mention that at the Exposition of 

 1867 we saw two round flat stones, exhibited by Mr. Lawrence Butler, of Missouri, 

 one of which (consisting of brecciated yellow jasper with a dark-brown siliceous 

 matrix, and 3^ inches in diameter and f inch thick) had been worn quite smooth, 

 and was said to have been used in dressing skins ; the other (of granite 2j inches 

 in diameter) was a knapping-stone, having a small hollow chipped out on each 

 face, and the edge worn all round. This (and the other also, perhaps) was said to 

 have been used for bruising the grains of maize J. 



It may be desirable to add that we have not seen among our Cave specimens 

 any sufficiently symmetrical, or cheese-shaped, orbicular stones at all comparable 

 to the playing-stones used by the Sandwich Islanders and the North-American 

 Indians. 



* Already referred to at page .61, note. 



t We have been informed also that at Agra and elsewhere in India pellets of clay, used for shooting 

 from the pellet-bow, are rounded by hand in small hollows excavated in stones ; and also that children's 

 playing-marbles are there made by manual labour in such little cavities, being rounded by a continued 

 rotatory rubbing with water in the hollow of the stone. 



J M. Mortillet refers to these two specimens as " Mortars," but evidently without good reason, in his 

 Materiaux pour 1'histoire de 1'homme,' 1867, p. 354. 



