126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



They corresponded to other deer's-horn implements found in various 

 parts of the shafts and galleries. But Canon Greenwell noted that, 

 while in the case of the two implements specially observed by him, 

 the handle of each lay towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines 

 which formed the blades of the picks pointed towards each other, 

 suggesting, as he conceived, that in all probability they had been 

 used respectively by a right and a left-handed miner. The day's 

 work over, the men had laid down their tools i-eady for the next 

 day's work ; meanwhile the roof fell in, and the picks were left un- 

 disturbed through all the intervening centuries, till the reopening 

 of the gallery. 



The circumstance, though worthy of note, among the other details 

 recorded by an accurate observer, could not in itself be regarded as 

 of great weight in its bearing on the general question of the origin 

 or prevalence of right or left-handedness. But any evidence tend- 

 ing to throw light on the usage in prehistoric times has a signifi- 

 cance and value in reference to the original and very general use of 

 the right hand where special dexterity is required. The question of the 

 reason for such preference was brought xmder the notice of Carlyle 

 by painful experience near the close of his life. It was his sad mis- 

 fortune, when he had reached the advanced age of seventy-five, to 

 lose the use of his right hand. The period of life was too late to 

 turn with any hope of success to the untrained left hand ; and more 

 than one entry in his journal refers to the irreparable loss. But 

 one curious embodiment of the reflections suggested by this privation 

 is thus recorded upwards of a year after experience had familiarized 

 him with all that the loss involved : — " Curious to consider the insti- 

 tution of the Bight Hand among universal mankind ; probably the 

 very oldest human institution that exists, indispensable to all human 

 cooperation whatsoever. He that has seen three mowers, one of 

 whom is left-handed, trying to work together, and how impossible it 

 is, has witnessed the simplest form of an impossibility, which but 

 for the distinction of a ' right hand,' would have pervaded all human 

 things. Have often thought of all that, — never saw it so clearly as 

 this morning while out walking, unslept and dreary enough in the 

 windy sunshine. How old 1 Old ! I wonder if there is any peo- 

 ple barbarous enough not to have this distinction of hands ; no 

 human Cosmos possible to be even begun without it. Oldest 

 Hebrews, &c., writing from right to left, are as familiar with the 



