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312 



break or hiatus. A thing of great interest to me in Lebanon was, that there 

 seems to have been left in the caverns there good evidence of a people 

 who really lived in that old post-glacial and second continental period ; and 

 I h;ive no doubt that we shall get further evidence of this. We may also get 

 evidence of the fact that there were civilised men existing then. But during 

 the earlier period of the existence of the human race, before men obtained a 

 knowledge of metals, men, whether civilised or not, must have depended far 

 more on stone implements than they do now. Some of the most civilised 

 of the native races in America cultivated their fields, and did it well, with 

 stone implements, many of them as rudely made as the old palceolithic 

 tools or weapons, and I am somewhat inclined to suspect that some 

 of the implements we find in the gravels belonged to and were used 

 by palaeolithic agriculturists. I am not certain that they were quite such 

 savages as we suppose. Mr. Oharlesworth has raised a curious point 

 as to the implements found in the gravels not having been rubbed or 

 abraded. I do not know the extent to which this is general, but 

 if it be a general thing, it would lead to the conclusion that, aftei" 

 the pebbles were rounded, the flint instruments were transported from 

 elsewhere, and by some means became mixed with them. It might be a 

 curious point to follow up . I have been asked as to the comparative ages 

 of certain remains found in America. I think it probable that the mastodon , 

 lived longer there than in this country — say up to the time the mammoth 

 became extinct — that both lived quite into the modern period, and probably 

 up to the time when the first men made their appearance on the American 

 Continent. The flint implements found there are on or near the surface 

 and mostly in alluvial deposits, so that we cannot say they are any older 

 than the modern period. There are some a little more ancient than the rest 

 found in the Californian gravels and in the rivers of Pennsylvania ; but I do 

 not think we have the right to say that any of them arc older than those of 

 your post-glacial gravels. Therefore we, in America, are very much in the 

 same position with you in regard to this point. I have only further 

 to say that I am very much obliged to all who have spoken and to the 

 meeting generally for the kind way in which they have received what I 

 have stated, which I know has been somewhat fragmentary. 



The meeting then examined the specimens and afterwards adjourned 

 to the Museum, where refreshments were served. 



