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instance which the lecturer has described as borers. There are some that 

 might have been employed as scrapers ; but most of the flints, if put in a 

 hole for use as chisels or for any other purpose, would soon slip out. They 

 seem to me, for the most part, nearly useless in the shape they bear. I 

 would ask Mr. Mello if he can suggest any way in which the greater part 

 of them could be fixed ? If they were to be used for warfare, or as a defence 

 against wild animals, how is it that they are not so shaped as to make them 

 likely to prove useful ? 



Mr. S. R. Pattison, F.G.S. — May I be allowed to state, with regard to some 

 of these implements (pointing out the objects referred to), that I have seen 

 hundreds of similar tools in the Valley of the Connecticut where they 

 have long been in use for hoeing corn. They are attached by thongs of 

 leather to handles which are not very stout, but are rather long, and allow a 

 little elasticity, and with such implements maize or any other crop may be 

 hoed. They would make very good garden implements — quite as good as 

 our own hoe. In this shape the hoe has long been made and used by the 

 Indians, and is so used still. Numbers of the hoe-heads are left scattered 

 about the ground. They are not considered of any value, and are not 

 removed from place to place, but are left, when done with, in the fields. I 

 might go through the entire list and vindicate their several uses ; but that 

 would take up too much time. I may say with regard to another point 

 which has been mentioned, that in the cromlechs found in Brittany there 

 are one or two drawings on the inside of the inner granite stones of the 

 great graves, which show the handles actually attached, sometimes by putting 

 the implement into a split piece of wood and tying it on. I think that 

 this has happened in the case of some of these tools. 



Mr. R. J. Hammond. — I should like to know whether Mr. Mello is of 

 opinion that the tribes who made these implements were ascending, or 

 retrograding in the scale of civilisation ? Some say the proofs we have are 

 in favour of the supposition that they were ascending ? Is it impossible, if 

 they were going backward, that some of the remains showing their previous 

 advance would be found ? Have indications been discovered that they had 

 been in a higher stage of civilisation ? 



Mr. J. M. Mello, F.G.S. — I am afraid I shall not be able to reply to all 

 the questions that have been put to me ; but there are some I will 

 endeavour to answer as plainly and concisely as possible. One speaker 

 asked : What is the thickness of the various sections in which the pits at 

 Spiennes occur ? They vary from about 3 feet to 30 feet. There is one 

 typical section given by M. Briart, who says that these pits are vertical, 

 narrow, and circular in section, and from rather over half a m^tre in diameter, 

 up to very nearly a yard ; that they are often slightly enlarged towards the 

 surface and also at their base in the chalk. All of them are filled up, as I 

 have said, by blocks ; and any one who cares to look at the drawings given 

 of one or two, of them in M. Briart's pamphlet will see that some of these 

 pits were very large in extent, and quite funnel shaped at their mouths, 

 while at the base they run underground in the form of regular galleries, 



