162 REPOKT— 1872. 



Implements characteristic of tlie neolitliic stage of culture have been found in 

 all parts of the world, and the identity of their forms in regions remote from one 

 another has attracted the notice of archfeologists. By degrees some of the most 

 primitive weapons would be superseded by others, and the improved forms would 

 be rapidly disseminated. Community of goods, which is characteristic of a primi- 

 tive state of society, would be a means of disseminating these improvements far 

 more rapidly than afterwards, when the idea of personal property had been intro- 

 duced, and before trade had been establislied. It has been found that in Western 

 Australia, where no individual is able long to retain any thing as his own, and 

 where members of another tribe are supposed to have a special claim on the pos- 

 sessions of an individual, this custom has been the means of conveying articles of 

 European manufacture far inland into districts where the white man is unknown. 

 We have also proof, in the migration of the Malays into Madagascar and the 

 spread of the Polynesian race over the Pacific Ocean, that oceanic boundaries are 

 not sufficient to prevent intercoinmunication between distant countries, and that 

 intercourse between people in a comparatively low state of culture must frequently 

 have taken place in prehistoric times. The earliest improvements would thus in 

 time become the most widely disseminated, and therefore the most difficult to trace 

 by their distribution at the present time. 



Amongst the earliest improvements upon the primitive arts of man would be the 

 substitution of the throwing-stick by the bow as a means of accelerating the flight 

 and force of the javelin. So decided an advance in the employment of missile force 

 would lead to the discontinuance of the throwing-stick for ordinary' purposes 

 wherever the bow was introduced. The throwing-stick is now found onh' in 

 distant and unconnected regions, viz. in Australia, amongst the Esquimaux and the 

 Purus Purus Indians of South America ; and it has been assumed, on account of 

 the isolated positions in which it is found, that it must be indigenous. On the 

 other hand, the use of the bow is almost universal ; and it has equally been assumed, 

 on account of its world-wide distribution, that it must be indigenous in ditl'erent 

 localities, and not derived from a common centre. GeogTaphical distribution, how- 

 ever, although affording the best evidence obtainable, cannot be relied upon with 

 certainty in the case of so early an invention as the bow appears to have been. 

 I cannot concur in thinking that we have any sure evidence that the bow originated 

 in different places ; on the contrary, what evidence we have appears to me to be of 

 a contrary tendency. 



In tropical and temperate regions the elastic properties of wood and its appli- 

 cability to the purposes of offence would force itself upon the notice of the aboriginal 

 man as he pushed his way through the underwood of the prinifeval forest. He 

 would perceive that by tying his lance to the end of an elastic stem, and by a simple 

 contrivance for retaining it in a bent position until the proper time arrived for 

 releasing the spring, it might be made to pierce other animals as they passed 

 through the wood ; hence the spring-lance or trap, which we find widely distri- 

 buted in parts of Africa and Southern Asia, and which in later years has been 

 carried by the negroes into South America. By degrees he would see that, with 

 the addition of a string, the trap might be made to project the lance witli great 

 force and accuracy ; and the power thus afforded of wounding a wild animal or an 

 enemy at a distance would at once commend it to his adi^ption. Where suitable 

 spring wood existed, the construction of the bow was simple enough ; but when the 

 use of this weapon penetrated into northern climes, where an arctic flora did not 

 supply wood of sufficient elasticity for the purpose, it would become necessary to 

 supplement the stiff pine-wood or bone by some suitable material. It would be 

 found that the sinews of animals fastened along the back would supply the elasticity 

 that was wanting. By this means he would be led to the use of the composite 

 bow, which is the bow peculiar to the northern hemisphere. A comparison of the 

 modern I'ersian composite bow with those figured on the Greek vases proves that 

 this was the form of bow used by the Scythians and others in ancient times. In 

 I^apland we find the same form. It wns carried by the northern immigrants into 

 India, but it is not indigenous in that country. By the Tartars it was introduced 

 into China. We find it also on the east coast of Siberia. Across Behring Strait it 

 reappears amongst the Esquimaux in its most primitive form ; but the returns at 



