52 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 
adze. The stone blade in these types of cutting tools differed 
but little among primitive people, the same blade being used 
for all purposes. 
The bronze celts of the Swiss Lake Dwellers are classical 
examples of the reproduction of stone tool types in bronze. 
Osborn’ fails to include the flint saw in his tables of imple- 
ments, but Mason’ mentions flint pieces with serrated edges 
found in many European as well as American caches. These 
flakes are carefully made and seem to be adaptable for no 
other purposes than hacking a piece of wood or bone in two. 
The use of thin strips of soft wood and sand much as the 
modern quarryman cut his block of marble into slabs was 
probably known in Paleolithic times ; undoubtedly in Neolithic. 
In ancient Egypt a bronze saw was used, and very primitive 
cross-cut saws of the same metal are in use today in China. 
The Aztecs and some modern Polynesian tribes make saws 
by inserting teeth and bits of stone in a wood handle.’ 
M. Adrien de Mortillet’s second group comprises those in- 
struments used for abrasion and for smoothing. He includes 
in it scrapers, gravers, rasps, files,, sandpaper, polishers, bur- 
nishers, whetstones and grindstones. 
The use of abrasives can not be considered a fundamental 
operation. Chipping and crushing doubtless came first and 
the abrasive process was used in finishing the tools roughly 
shaped by pounding or chipping. 
Serapers were used to prepare skins for use as clothing 
and coverings. The process of skinning an animal needs neces- 
sarily be crude when done with stone knives, and the use of 
a seraper to remove the mangled flesh from the skin is a 
normal development. They appear in the Chellean and are 
most conspicuously deveolped in the Mousterian and the 
Aurignacian of the Middle Paleolithic’. 
The instruments used in polishing stone are of small im- 
portance in the Paleolithic, but assume a prominent place | 
among the implements of the Neolithic. Mason’ tells of the 
many reports sent annually to the Smithsonian at Washing- 
ton telling of the discovery of large blocks of sandstone whose 
Johnson, J. P. The Prehistoric Period in South Africa. 1910. P. 51. 
Osborn, H. F., Men of the Old Stone Age. ri 2710 a 2a 
Mason. The Origin of Invention. 1901. P. 48 
Ibid. P. 48. 
Loe. Cit. P.. 52. 
SA OE 
