Jan. li^, 1875] 



NATURE 



215 



elongation of the limb of the planet. Had it existed to the ex- 

 tent of one hundredth of the diameter of Venus, I am confident 

 I should have seen it. 



"At last external contact I fancied that the limb of the sun at 

 point of contact was broken more rapidly than it should be, but 

 if there was a ' bead ' it was a very minute one. 



" At first internal contact, in spite of the low altitude of the 

 sun, the definition of the perimeters of both it and the planet 

 was excellent ; but at last internal contact, owing to the great 

 heat and a strong land breeze, there was some amount of atmo- 

 spheric interference. 



" The time of the transit was taken with an ordinary watch, a 

 good goer, and I hope to be able to fix the position of the station 

 before long, although such observations here must of course ba 

 of very secondary consideration. 



" During the transit I tried to obtain absorption bands from the 

 atmosphere of the planet, but failed, owing to insufficient power 

 and the difficulty of keeping the slit of the stellar spectroscope 

 used, on the planet, with altazimuth motion. 



" I may mention that on the evening of the 9th there was a fair 

 display of parhelia, just at sunset. The sky was then covered 

 with delicate bands of cirrocumulus." 



ON THE AGE OF AMERICAN STONE IMPLE- 

 MENTS, OR " INDIAN RELICS'' 

 THE interest connected with the various forms of 

 ordinary stone implements, of which arrow-heads 

 are by far the most abundant form, is greatly lessened 

 by the fact that nothing connected with their discovery 

 bears upon the question of the date of their origin. We 

 know about the date of the introduction of iron, by 

 European visitors to our country, and therefore about 

 the time of the abandonment of stone implements and 

 weapons by the Red men ; but concerning the time of the 

 commencement of the use of stone here in the States we 

 are almost wholly in the dark. 



Having, during the past three years, had unusually 

 favourable opportunities for collecting the various types 

 of relics from a locality extraordinarily rich in them, we 

 have endeavoured to learn something concerning the date 

 of their origin by studying them eii masse and in situ, as 

 in this manner they at least suggest probabilities, which 

 isolated specimens, gathered from numerous and distant 

 localities, would never do. During the past three years 

 we have gathered and carefully examined, as they were 

 taken from the soil, over nine thousand stone implements, 

 embracing fully nineteen twentieths of the forms described 

 by Mr. John Evans in his "Ancient Stone Implements of 

 Great Britain," and some twenty forms of weapons and 

 household implements not mentioned in his work. 



The result of the examination of this enormous collection 

 of specimens on the spot where they were found, has been 

 to convince us that the ruder forms, usually of r.l.aty rock 

 and other minerals softer than flint, are older, as a rule, 

 than the beautiful jasper specimens found immediately 

 above them. No such conclusions could be arrived at 

 from merely examining these same specimens in a cabinet, 

 and if these ruder and more elaborate forms were inti- 

 mately associated in the soil, it would be difficult to 

 dissociate them ; but taking the history of the discovery 

 of each specimen separately, we find that just in pro- 

 portion as these relics are rude in manufacture and 

 primitive in type, tluy are mere deeply embedded in the 

 soil. We have never met with a jasper (flmt) arrow-head 

 in or below an undisturbed stratum of sand or gravel, and 

 we have but seldom met with a rude implement of the 

 general character of European drift implements on the 

 surface of the ground ; and when such specimens did 

 occur, there were generally some indications of unusually 

 deep disturbance of the surface of the ground. Indeed, 

 it is in fact just what it should be in theory, i.e., the older 

 forms are found alone, and at considerable depths below 

 the surface ; the newer and latest types found only at the 

 surface, except when in graves, and associated with these 



a few specimens of the more archaic forms ; just as we 

 now in our own time see, in some isolated locaUties 

 household implements still in use, that, as a rule have 

 been discarded for better forms for more than a century. 

 We repeat, that the conclusions arrived at by us we claini 

 to be warranted by the fact of their applying to the collec- 

 tion of over nine thousand specimens gathered by us 

 from a limited locality, and examined at the time of their 

 discoveiy with special refei'ence to the relationship the 

 rude and elaborate forms bore to each other. 



The belief here expressed with reference to the rela- 

 tionship of rude and elaborate relics is in accord with the 

 division of the Stone Age into a Paleolithic and a Neo- 

 lithic era ; inasmuch as no indication oi sl polish has been 

 found on any of the rude relics gathered by us ; and 

 polished celts and grooved axes with well-ground blades 

 or edges, occur only on the surface or in graves. It may 

 be well to state here that by the phrase " on the surface " 

 we mean on or in the soil that is now in cultivation. 

 Relics that are upturned by the plough are considered as 

 being "on the surface,"— beneath the surface being the 

 stratum underlying the cultivated soil, and so beyond the 

 reach of the ploughshare. 



When and how the Atlantic coast of North America 

 became peopled by the Red men cannot be determined 

 by these same relics ; but that that event should have 

 been comparatively recent, and that such rude relics as we 

 now find deeply embedded in the earth, and the magnifi- 

 cently wrought agate and jasper spears, and pohshed 

 porphyry and hematic celts, should have been in use at 

 the same time and by the same people, is simply incre- 

 dible. We cannot now go into the full details of all the 

 points of interest connected with our discoveries, but 

 offer with confidence to students of American archaeology 

 this fact, that the paleolithic relics are immensely older 

 than the elaborately worked surface-found forms. This 

 fact, we believe, is a powerful support to the theory (if, 

 indeed, it needs further demonstration) of the gradual 

 development of man from the condition we call savagery. 

 Charles C. Abbott 



Prospect Hill, Trenton, N. J., U. S. A. 



NOTES 



The invitation addressed by the King of Siam to the Royal 

 and the Astronomical Societies ought to be gratifying to scien- 

 tific men in more ways than one ; it is one more evidence of the 

 spread of a respect for science, and of .an idea, however vague, of 

 its high value. The letters amount, indeed, as the Times re- 

 marks, to the offer of a large subsidy on the part of the King, 

 and are no empty compliment. They indicate 'n the clearest 

 manner the e^Tect which the steady prose:ution of incjuiries by 

 the most civilised is having in the less civilised countries ; an 

 effect of an important kind, which it would be difficult to arrive 

 at in any other peaceful way. The following is the text of the 

 Kiny's letter to the Astronomical .Society : — " The Royal Palace, 

 Bangkok, Oct. 9, 1S74.— Mydear sir, I have much pleasure in 

 informing you that I have received the commands of his Majesty 

 to request you to inform the Royal Astronomical Society that if 

 it will appoint men of science to observe the total eclipse of 

 April next, his Majesty will be happy to consider them as his pri- 

 vate guests during their visit, and will take on himself their 

 entertainment and provide them with transport for themselves and 

 their instruments from Bangkok to the station selected by them 

 and back again, and will erect such temporary buildings as are 

 required for them and their assistants. A communication to this 

 effect will be made by his Excellency the Minister for Foreign 

 Aliairs to the Acting British Consul-General here ; but as this 

 will be slow in reaching the gentleman interested, his Majesty 

 has commanded me to address this note to you to communicate 

 it to the Society as soon as possible. I shall be most happy to 



