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paper, to find so difficult a subject handled in so masterly a manner, and to 

 note that he has been content to study and present the facts as they really are, 

 without evincing the too common desire to prove some pre-conceived theory 

 as having been ascertained and settled by the discovery of flint implements;. 

 I cannot but believe that the more v/e talk of flint implements in this spirit, 

 the more truth shall we elicit, and the more shall we find that the phantoms 

 created by them have no tangible existence. There is one point that strikes me 

 as very interesting, and that is the singular verification of the flint implements 

 of sacrifice spoken of in Egyptian history, furnished by the evidence of the 

 Egyptian specimens now in the British Museum. It is well known that to 

 this day flint implements are used for sacrificial purposes in the South Sea 

 Islands. One of my brothers has in his possession an axe which has been 

 used within the memory of living men for human sacrifice, and I consider 

 it to be a curious survival of an ancient sacrificial custom, when we find that 

 in Egypt they used sacrificial knives for purposes of embalmment. It may 

 also have been that the Egyptian surgeons who knew a good deal, had dis- 

 covered that a clean-cutting surface was a very good thing for operations 

 in hot climates. But the fact that throughout the world flint knives 

 have been used for sacrificial purposes, is a strong evidence of the survival 

 of an ancient custom. As a general rule it may be taken that anything 

 connected with sacrifice is also connected with the early history of the 

 human race. The singular aversion to eating the horse among European 

 races seems to me to be a survival of the time when it was a proof of Odin 

 worship to eat horseflesh. The horse-sacrifice was one of the prominent 

 features of the Aryan system of. worship, and I think it most interesting to 

 find in these things the evidence of the long survival of ancient observances. 

 J. Eae, Esq., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. — I came here to-night with a good deal 

 of pleasure as I expected to hear much that was valuable, and I am extremely 

 gratified by Avhat I have listened to. I cannot, however, ofler much in the 

 shape of addition to the information already furnished. My only acquaint- 

 ance with people using stone implements is with the Esquimaux, and I doubt 

 whether the form in which they work up the stones they employ as imple- 

 ments at the present day, is altogether like that found in the caves and 

 gravels of this and other countries. They are generally veiy skilfully made, 

 and probably they have acquired a greater power of fashioning them neatly 

 or of finishing them oft' ; but they cannot have learned how to do this from 

 any other people, in the case at any rate of one or two implements, for they 

 are made by a people who never came in contact with those of any other 

 nation than themselves. The way in which they work up one or two 

 implements that are made of green-stone is something wonderful, considering 

 the materials they have. I have a woman's knife which, I think both Sir 

 John Lubbock and Mr. Evans, as well as other authorities, speak of as being 

 one of the most neatly made implements it is possible to manufacture out 

 of such very hard material. I have another green-stone implement, of about 

 eight or nine inches in length, made into an ice-chisel as neatly as any artificer 

 in this country could fashion it. And all the other Esquimaux iiuple- 



