ON THE INTERMENTS OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 63 



Certain facts connected with the long barrows that have 

 been explored lead to the conclusion that they are of a 

 much earlier date than the round barrows. No bronze 

 implements have been met with in these long barrows : 

 nothing but flint implements. Still there is one fact which 

 has always appeared to militate against their greater an- 

 tiquity that they really are much larger, more elaborate, 

 and more perfect burial places than the round barrows. The 

 order of sequence in most antiquities usually is for the 

 simpler things to come first, and the more complex and 

 elaborate to come last. But perhaps this objection is not 

 of so much weight. And it is not at all improbable 

 that the long barrows contain the remains of a very early 

 race of people, who inhabited this island before the people 

 who buried their dead in the round barrows. 



There are, however, other series of researches of a far 

 more extraordiniary kind, which extend the history of man- 

 kind back to a very much earlier period than that in which 

 the first barrow was raised in the British Islands. The 

 subject of these curious researches is very extensive and 

 can only be glanced at in a few words on the present 

 occasion. It may be characterised generally as geological 

 and palseontological, and is constantly to be taken up and 

 pursued in connection with human remains and the works 

 and implements made by man which have been preserved. 

 No one can explain these researches better than Mr. Garner, 

 and it is almost necessary to apologize for introducing any 

 allusion to them here. 



The wrought flint implements that are met with in 

 barrows are of two kinds one those in which the flint 

 is simply chipped into the desired form, and the other 

 in which the flint, after being chipped into shape, has after- 



