242 TEE EEV. J. MAGENS MELLO, M.A., F.G.S., ETC., 



primitive savages would probably be so infested with vermin 

 that they might have required such implements as scratchers, 

 but it is far more likely that such minute tools would have 

 been mounted in pieces of wood as saAvs and rasps. The 

 Orinoco Indians made use of such rasps in the preparation of 

 their manioc, inserting flint chips into flat boards. 



PALiEOLITHIC MaN. 



Let us pass on now to that more recent age termed by our- 

 selves the Pleistocene, the Quaternary of the continental 

 geologists. 



W e are now on surer ground ; the fact of man's existence 

 on the earth is no longer questionable ; indubitable traces of 

 his presence abound on every side in the alluvial deposits of 

 our river systems, in the floors of caves, and in other recent 

 accumulations. In the cave floor we find, if not his actual 

 skeleton, which is seldom present, yet undoubted examples of 

 his industry, tools, and weapons in great variety, and not only 

 of stone, but made also out of other materials, such as bone 

 or the antlers of deer ; we also find the remains of his feasts, 

 and the first essays of his artistic skill. 



Together with such objects occur the remains of the 

 various animals which were his contemporaries, many of 

 which are noAv extinct species, or at any rate are foreign at 

 the present time to the countries where their bones are 

 found. 



These are facts which were much questioned not so many 

 years ago, but are now accepted by all competent judges of 

 the evidence. 



Man as he thus first appears before us in the Pleistocene 

 age was in a very primitive state, one denoted, on account of 

 the material from which most of his implements were made — a 

 Stone age ; stone and not one or other of the metals being in 

 iise, there has been no trace found i)f any metal in connec- 

 tion with the Palaiolithic man of Pleistocene times. 



There is no doubt that these men who fished in our rivers, 

 hunted in our primeval forests, and from time to time dwelt 

 in our caves, were utterly unacquainted with the use of 

 metals ; whether at the same epoch, in other lands, more 

 highly cultured races were already metallurgists is another 

 question. Some writers, as M. Lenormant, have held the 

 opinion that such may have been the case, that certain mem- 

 berc! of the human family were from the remotest ages the 



