128 FOSSIL MEN. 



to the celebrated gravel-pits of St. Acheul, that these 

 may have been worked in pre-historic times like the 

 American flint-beds, and I find that Mr. Belgrand, in 

 his recent report on the Paris Basin, which solves 

 so many difficulties as to the French river gravels, 

 regards these beds, and also those of Hoxne in Eng- 

 land, as sites of manufactories of implements, though 

 he thinks the manufacture was carried on when the 

 water flowed at the height of these gravels. Eau has 

 described in the Smithsonian Eeports hoes from 

 Illinois 7| inches long and 6 inches broad, neatly 

 chipped, and with two notches in the upper part for 

 the attachment of a handle. Foster has figured two 

 specimens from the same State, of rude form and 

 without notches. One of them is no less than 13 

 inches long. They show in the lower part an abrasion 

 attributable to long use in digging. Many of these 

 American hoes, of the ruder forms first mentioned, 

 are scarcely distinguishable from the broader styles 

 of so-called Palaeolithic implements found in Europe, 

 while there is a sharper and narrower European type 

 sometimes also found in America, and which may 

 have been used as a pick rather than a hoe. It is 

 quite true that in our ignorance, born of too great 

 civilization, it is often difficult for us to distinguish 

 hoes from spears, tomahawks, or scrapers ; but this 

 renders all the more futile any attempt to assign these 

 to distinct ages from one another, or from more 

 polished implements. In any case, American ana- 

 logies would lead us to refer some of the larger forms 



