382 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[March, 1906. 



The 

 Eolithic Controversy. 



By J. RussHi-L Larkby. 



TllF. recent renewal of the controversy i>ii the nature of 

 Koliths (Man: Anthropological Inst., Oct., Nov., and 

 Dec, 1905) has had the result of awakening further 

 interest in the question of the authenticity of these 

 forms as illustrating a pre-Pala?olithic period of man's 

 progress. As siiggested in my note in " Knowledge " 

 for October, 1905, p. 252, it is necessary for the objec- 

 tors t(j the artificial origin of these forms to show that 

 the mechanical process of Mantes in ;my way resembles 

 the natural method by which the plateau or any other 

 gravels were laid down. 



On December 19, 1905, Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren, 

 F.G.S., read before the Anthropological Institute a 

 paper on this question, in which he attempted to show 

 the purely natural origin of these forms. In illustration 

 of his contention Mr. Warren made several pseudo- 

 Eoliths, which were handed round for the inspection of 

 his audience. The mechanical process in this case took 

 the form of a screw press, in the lower jaw of which 

 was a small circular pit; two stones were placed in this 

 receptacle, and on pressure being applied, the flints 

 were fractured in a way which certainly, to some 

 extent, resembled Eolithic impleinents. Whilst con- 

 gratulating Mr. Warren on the ingenuity thus displayed 

 in support of his contention, it is impossible to 

 give assent or support to his deductions. I should 

 characterise this process as an artificial method of 

 the most pronounced type ; it rests with its originator 

 to prove that any legitimate comparison can be drawn 

 between the screw press and natural deposition. Mr. 

 Warren eliminated two most important factors in his 

 experiment; in the first place, the presence of water 

 under natural conditions must very materially reduce 

 the intensity of any blows received by the stones when 

 undergoing free rolling in a river bed; secondly, the 

 hard, rigid bed of the screw press has no similarity to 

 the soft and muddy floor of a river channel, hence the 

 blows received by flints in the process of rolling would 

 again undergo a considerable diminution. I would 

 again emphasize the fact that in the plateau gravels 

 there are forms which are not only definitely chipped, 

 but are almost wholly unabraded by transport; others, 

 however, show- the work obscured by subsequerit roll- 

 ing, and to some of these highly-worn examples excep- 

 tion might well be taken if they were not accompanied 

 by the unworn forms. It may, however, be objected 

 that the \ery presence of the chipped edges is indicative 

 of natural action, and this obviates the necessity of suppos- 

 ing man's presence here during the deposition of this drift. 

 To this it may be answered that those flints with slightly 

 abraded edges bear very few insijjient cones of per- 

 cussion on their flatter surfaces; therefore, if the 

 chipping is purely natural, the process of rolling 

 was confined entirely to certain areas of the stones. 

 This hypothesis will not commend it.self to students of 

 the question save as a rcdiiclw ad absurdum of the 

 natural origin theory, and yet it is the conclusion to 



which our opponents are forced if they persist in at- 

 tributing these forms to some agent other than an in- 

 telligent being. Mr. Warren's contention seems to be 

 that as the results of certain mechanical methods of the 

 present day closely simulate man's work in the past, 

 Ipso facto, man has ne\er produced them at all; but to 

 produce such forms by an essentially artificial method, 

 and then to assert that in the past they could only be 

 the outcome of natural action seems to me to 1)C 

 illogical. Mr. Warren's answer to the claim that 

 Eoliths are shaped according to definite types, is that 

 the shape is governed by the existence of lines of weak- 

 ness; therefore, the matter of definite type is simply the 

 natural result and proof of such lines of weakness. 

 The argument is pleasantly attractive from a purely 

 theoretical point of \iew, but it is essentially a case of 

 assertion arising from assumption. It is necessary to 

 prove the existence of these lines of weakness where 

 thev would be least expected, i.e., the thickest parts of 

 the flints, for some Eoliths in my collection are as 

 well chipped at the base as at the thin edge. 



To the " creep " of frozen and partially frozen soils 

 and gravels Mr. W^arrcn w'ould assign some types of 

 Eoliths; but here, again, is very debatable ground. My 

 own observations in the area of the Daren t and Cray 

 lead me to believe that in this instance very little post- 

 deposition movement has taken place; as the only site 

 at which there is clear evidence of frozen conditions is 

 a small plateau carrying a high level Darent gravel, 

 the " creep " must have been of an insignificant nature 

 — hopelessly insufticient, it may be suggested, to shape 

 and chip the definitely-formed and striated Eoliths found 

 there. To those who have devoted their time to practi- 

 cal investigation in the field and to careful classification 

 at home, it may seem inconceivable that the definite 

 and classifiable types of plateau flints are merely the 

 result of fortuitous batterings; save on the theorv of 

 intelligent design, it is difficult to believe that certain 

 forms would be repeated over and over again and at- 

 tained by a remarkable similarity in the type of work 

 and the angle of chipping. 



All students of this interesting question are indebted 

 to Mr. Warren for his careful paper, and if it fails to 

 obtain the elimination of Eoliths from the field of 

 science, it will at least show the crying need for greater 

 care in the admission of indefinite evidence in support 

 of our claim. There can be little doubt that even in 

 England flints have been admitted as evidence which 

 should have been left in the field or consigned to the 

 heap of rejected forms in the garden. \\'hen, how- 

 ever, it is said that in the gravels of St. Frest 80 per 

 cent, of the flints are considered as either " utilised or 

 retouched,"* it is impossible to refrain from raising the 

 cry of " Siste, viator." 



To Make Iron Grow. 



To the Editors of " Knowledge & Scientific News." 

 SiRs,^In your January number, page 330, you have a 

 short notice under the above headin.Lj, slunving that iron by 

 repeated heating to a critical teni])erature ,ind coolin<j can be 

 made to expand in cubical dimension to 46 per cent, of its 

 orif^inal size. No theory except the globular molecular 

 theory can account for this. 



The globul.ir molecular theory is this. That the molecule 

 in gases and liquids is a hollow tjlobe, and in solids a 

 variously shaped hollow mass, all with their inner spaces 



* Dr. Hugo Obermaier, in Man, 1905, Art. 102, 



