XIU 



of this kind was that, in many instances, they were found in close 

 proximity with works of undoubted human manufacture — such as 

 works of carving or sculpture. When thus found, there was good 

 reason for supposing that those flakes might have been wrought 

 by artificial means ; but, in themselves, they certainly carried no 

 conviction with them. For his own part, however, he confessed 

 that he could not feel the same amount of interest in such objects 

 as in those relics of antiquity which came within the historic 

 period. He did not much care to know with what tools the Es- 

 quimaux or Patagonians worked ; and though he was glad to see 

 occasional contributions of that kind, to show what man is in his 

 uncultivated state, he could not feel the same amount of interest 

 he did in those objects, the production of which showed the ex- 

 istence of some degree of culture and education in the producers. 

 Such objects were entitled to the same attention as history itself. 

 When, however, we got into that dim uncertain period — the prse- 

 historic — and did not know whether the objects they were talking 

 about were formed by natural means, or were works of art, he 

 must repeat that he could not feel any great interest in them. It 

 was true that inferences of a startling character were dravsni from 

 such objects ; but he was not much afraid of them. 



Dr. Barhajvi produced some few flint flakes out of a great 

 many he had found on the Scilly Islands, in situations which, he 

 thought, proved conclusively that man could have had nothing to 

 do with them. On all the larger islands, in the small hollows 

 that lie between the crests of the granite hills, were profusely 

 scattered over the surface pieces of flint, in places to which, geo- 

 logically, flint was foreign ; and with those flints were also speci- 

 mens of green-sand and other rock foreign to the geology of the 

 islands. Other flints were found in the sections of sea-side clifis, 

 or imbedded in the detritus/ which covers the rocks to a depth of 

 from two to eight feet. Many of them were regular flint-pebbles, 

 broken in various ways, but much less comminuted than were 

 those scattered on the surface. In many instances the strata 

 were contorted, as if they had been subjected to violent cur- 

 rents. But all the flints were in situations in which he thought 

 there was not the slightest probability of human agency in their 

 production ; though similar fragments might have been used as 

 tools. But, from the great extent of ground over which they 

 were scattered, and from their being found on all the islands, 

 there could be no doubt they were deposited by natural causes. 

 Any person, however, who had been in the habit of looking at 

 flint flakes assumed to be of human manufacture, would see a very 

 close resemblance in the mode of fracture, and the readiness with 

 which many of these, which were unquestionably natural, might 



