8188 Notices of New Books. 



men in the possession of Mr. Birch. In this case the operator, probably 

 through inadvertence — for the corresponding portion of the fellow- 

 antler bears no such trace — first set to work at this bone above the 

 *burr' or junction with the skull, but after a few strokes with 

 his tool, he seems to have thought better of it, and finished the job 

 by cutting off a portion of the skull with it. To what use these bones 

 have been put I do not take on myself to suggest, nor is that in 

 accordance with my present object. It may not be uninteresting to 

 compare the excellent handiwork of this early British sawyer with a 

 much more recent though still ancient bit of a reindeer's antler, brought 

 by me from Lapland, where it formed one of a large collection of 

 similar offerings, now I believe scattered at an old Lapp Altar at 

 Jerisjarwi. In this the marks of some six or seven blows of a hatchet 

 are plainly visible, and testify either to the clumsiness or bad tools of 

 the operator, who probably at last effected his purpose by breaking off 

 the half-severed bone by main force, as the appearance of the surface 

 leads one to suppose. Of the other bones found in West Mere, and I 

 am told there were hundreds of them, most of the larger ones have 

 been fractured at one or either extremity, doubtless in order to extract 

 the marrow they contained. But they have not been split longitudi- 

 nally, as is the case with the marrow-bones found in the Danish 

 Kitchen-Middens ; and we may perhaps infer from this fact that 

 something like the long-horn spoons which we now have for that pur- 

 pose were in use amongst the ancient gourmets. Another bone, and, 

 as far as I can make out, the only one found which presents this pe- 

 culiarity, has been polished on one side, but the reason why is not 

 very obvious, unless it has served, as I before suggested in the case of 

 a similar specimen, for a skait. It appears to have belonged to the 

 long-fronted ox, and my motive for referring to it, as well as dwelling 

 upon these other circumstances, is only to strengthen the truth of 

 Professor Owen's conjecture, to which I have already referred, as to 

 the probability of that species having been domesticated by former 

 races of men in this country, and hence the possibility of its being 

 the progenitor of some of our modern breeds of cattle. I must add 

 that no weapons or implements of metal, which can be referred to a 

 period at all remote, were brought to light in this or any of the 

 adjoining meres, but a great number of flint disks were found, which, 

 according to the description I have received (for unfortunately none 

 of them seem to have been preserved), must closely have resembled 

 those known to the Danish antiquarians as ' sling-stoues,' from the 

 probaVjle use made of them." 



