_ Fan. 18, 1883] 
are at West Hackney, arrested Prof. Prestwich’s atten- 
tion. It is also remarkable that although alist of twenty- 
three land and freshwater shells is given in that paper, 
yet it does not include the only two of especial interest, 
viz. Corbi.ula fluminalis, Miill.,and Hydrobia marginata, 
Mich. ; the first of which is extremely common, and the 
latter frequent. The branches of trees, “sharply broken 
into short pieces,” and the fossil bones, “showing no 
trace of wear or fracture,” are frequent in all the West 
Hackney pits. One may be sometimes very near a 
curious discovery and yet miss it. 
In NATuRE, vol. xxvi. p. 579, I described and illus- 
trated the West Hackney, or Stoke Newington, palz- 
olithic gravels as understood by me, confining myself to 
the geological aspects of the situation. I now approach 
the subject of the weapons and tools contained in the 
drift of that place. Of the stone implements there are 
three distinct varieties, each belonging to a different 
geological time. The implements of these ages are not 
confined to the valley of the Thames, as they are marked 
with almost equal distinctness in other places as at Can- 
terbury, Bedford, Southampton, and elsewhere. 
In looking for the oldest human works, it would be un- 
reasonable to expect symmetrical implements. The very 
earliest weapons and tools used by our most remote pre- 
cursors must have been natural or accidentally broken 
stones :—naturally pointed stones and stones with a 
naturally suitable cutting or chopping edge; the first 
attempts at implement making must have been at the 
time when the primeval savages ‘‘ quartered” a stone by 
smashing it, and then selected pointed and knife-like 
pieces of this stone for tools. 
None of the following rules are without exceptions, 
for amongst the implements which are usually very 
large, a very small specimen may now and then occur ; 
and amongst those which are usually very small, there 
may be at times a large example. The lustre and deep 
ochreous tints may at times vary a little. Notwithstand- 
ing exceptions, when all the characters are taken together, 
the distinctness of the three classes will hold good. 
The ‘oldest known tools are the rarest, and, according 
to my estimate, can be recognized by the following cha- 
racters :—they are generally lingulate, or club-shaped, 
with a heavy butt, often rudely ovate, never acuminate, 
generally large and very rude, frequently with a thick, 
ochreous crust, and always greatly abraded, as if they had 
been tossed about for ages in the sea. Some of these 
implements are so much abraded that they have lost 
almost every trace of flaking. These old implements 
acquired their ochreous crust before they were buried in 
the gravel, as they occur amongst sub-angular lustrous 
flints and even chert gravel, where only the implements 
and a few stray stones exhibit the ochreous crust. I have 
seen no trimmed flakes or scraping tools belonging to this 
older age. In London, these old implements are gene- 
rally found near the bottom of the twenty feet (or even 
thirty feet) excavations. At Ca>terbury they occur in thin 
seams of distinct ochreous material where all the contained 
flints have an ochreous surface. All these older tools 
were made at a long distance from where they are now 
found. Two Canterbury examples are illustrated, half 
actual size at Fig. 1 and 2, Nos 100 and 126 in my collec- 
tion. A very important point has now to be especially 
noticed : when these ochreous instruments were originally 
tossed about and buried in the gravel some of them be- 
came chipped and even broken. Now, the chipped and 
broken surfaces of these older implements, as at A A, 
Fig. 1, are mever ochreous, but invariably of the natural 
colour of the flint and lustrous. This lustre has been 
acquired since the gravels were laid down, and it exactly 
agrees with the lustre of the sub-abraded lustrous imple- 
nents of medium age found from 8 feet to 10 feet above 
the ochreous ones. It follows, therefore, that the lustrous 
implements, although enormously old, can only be as old 
NATURE 
275 
as the time when the ochreous ones were bruised and 
broken in the gravels where they are now found. 
Another fact must be mentioned here: the men who 
used the oldest known tools sometimes broke them in 
two whilst they were at work with them ; the accidentally 
fractured surfaces of this class are of course as old as the 
tools, and therefore always ochreous. Points and butt 
ends wholly ochreous are of common occurrence : these 
pieces of tools must have been shattered for long ages 
before the gravels of middle age were laid down. 
The men who made and used the rude ochreous tools 
were to a great extent a “whole handed” race—they had 
not learned the full use of their fingers but held the 
weapons as one would now hold a heavy stone for smash- 
ing. It is probable that the more pointed end of the 
club-shaped implements was sometimes grasped in the 
hand and the butt used asa club or hammer. The ab- 
sence of scrapers indicates that the men probably knew 
nothing of dressing skins, and were unclothed. 
In and near London lustrous and sub-abraded tools of 
medium age are commonly found at a depth of 12 feet; 
these tools show a distinct improvement in workman- 
ship over the older ones. Most of the examples are 
lingulate and acuminate, and the butt, and sometimes 
the umbo, shows signs of hammering, the ovate form is 
not uncommon, but the cutting edge all round I have not 
yet seen. A few chisel ended implements occur. Rude 
choppers and somewhat large scraping tools are common. 
All the artificially chipped stones of this medium age are 
sub-abraded and lustrous. They were not made where 
now found, but have been carried by the drift for a short 
distance. A pointed weapon and chopper of medium 
paleolithic age are illustrated half real size at Figs. 3 and 
4, Nos. 588 and 482 in my collection. A scraper of the 
same age is illustrated at Fig. 5, Scraper No. 9 in my 
collection. 
When the lustrous sub-abraded tools were made the 
men had by that time acquired the habit of holding their 
weapons in a lighter fashion,—still in the palm, but more 
lightly held with the thumb and two next fingers. The 
frequent presence of horse-shoe and side scrapers now 
indicates that the men had possibly learned to rudely 
dress skins for clothing. Sometimes unfinished implements 
are found; one of medium age from Lower Clapton, 
London, is illustrated at Fig. 6. The dotted line shows 
where the point would have been, if the maker had finished 
it. Implements roughly blocked out to form, and without 
any secondary trimming, are common: it would appear 
that the men sometimes first blocked out a number of im- 
plements rudely with a heavy hammer-stone, and afterwards 
finished with neater fabricating tools. An implement in 
a preparatory stage, of which I have many similar 
examples, is illustrated in Fig. 7, from Bedford. Many 
implements were accidentally shattered in the course of 
manufacture, and the shattered failures are common in all 
implementiferous gravels. 
Long after these two classes of tools were buried by 
floods of water deep in the gravel and sand, there lived 
a third race of palzolithic men, as far removed from the 
men who made the lustrous sub-abraded implements as 
these latter men were from the makers of the ochreous 
and highly abraded instruments. These newer tools are 
found at Stoke Newington at about 8 feet above the 
lustrous examples, and generally about 4 feet from the 
present surface. In some places so much top material 
has been taken off for brickmaking that the stratum 
containing the newer implements is almost exposed on 
the surface. Denudation since palzolithic times has 
considerably altered the contours round north London, 
and the “ Paleolithic Floor’’ at South Hornsey, close to 
Stoke Newington, is 14 feet below the surface instead of 
4 feet—this 10 feet has been removed in some places by 
the rains of centuries, in others by modern brickmakers - 
i and nurserymen. 
