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nearly half a century that paper remained in the volume of the Transactions 

 of the Royal Society without being thought worthy of scientific discussion. 

 But after the lapse of something like forty or fifty years light suddenly broke 

 in upon the truth of that theory, of which the research made by Mr. Frere , 

 who had long gone to his rest, was the forerunner ; for the evidence he had 

 furnished was confirmed by M, Boucher de Perthes and other workers in 

 the deposits of the pleistocene period. There are one or two points on which 

 I should like to question Mr. Mello. In the first place, I would ask him to 

 explain, if he can, the uses of these implements. Mr. Mello has referred to 

 the beautiful finish of some of those that have been brought from Denmark. 

 I may state that I was one of the pioneers in the formation of the Anthropo- 

 logical Society, and was present at one of its meetings a few years ago. On 

 that occasion every article of furniture in the room was covered with a mag- 

 nificent collection of flints from Denmark, and what most astonished me was 

 that some of the implements, which were six, seven, and eight inches in 

 length, were most beautifully, symmetrically, and even exquisitely finished ; 

 but at the same time so slender in their make that I should have thought 

 that to have put them to any use requiring considerable mechanical efi"ort 

 would have had the efi'ect of demolishing them ; that is to say, that to have 

 speared an animal with any one of them would have broken it to pieces at 

 once. This has always been to me a great difiiculty ; and the same remark 

 will apply to some of the arrow-heads. I have had great practice in what 

 may be termed flint-chipping, though I never attempted to make implements 

 or flake knives ; but, being familiar with the peculiar brittleness of flint, it 

 is to me a great puzzle to realise how these long slender implements could 

 have been used either in war or in the chase, without being broken : that is 

 one question on which I hope Mr. Mello wiU be able to satisfy my curiosity. 

 Another question is this: — How is it that the early, or palseolithic, imple- 

 ments found in the gravel beds have their edges sharp and little worn, while 

 the gravel itself, consisting of flints derived from the chalk, is generally 

 presented to us in the form of boulders and pebbles, and not in the form of 

 the original flint as seen in the chalk ] In fact, we see it only in the form 

 of rolled pebbles, or shingle, such as we find on the sea beach. But when 

 we come upon these flint implements, instead of finding that they have been 

 rolled into pebbles, we see them with their edges clear and sharp, and with 

 no evidence of bouldering. I do not mean to say that no such thing has 

 ever been seen as a bouldered implement in the flint gravels ; but the 

 implements generally are such as I have described. I remember having 

 gone with Mr. Fitch, of Norwich, to Brandon, and although we did not 

 obtain any on that visit, Mr. Fitch had previously procured from Brandon, 

 at diflerent times, a magnificent series of flint implements ; not one of 

 which presented any signs of bouldering. How, I ask, is this to be 

 explained ? There is another point as to which Mr. Mello, will, perhaps, say 

 a word ; I allude to the question of forgeries. When it was first discovered 

 that there really was some evidence of man having been contemporaneous 

 with the mammoth, I was so unfortunate as to fall in with that quite 



