936 
when he formulated a classification according 
to the function of the implement, as by pres- 
sure, friction, etc. De. Mortillet’s classification 
was elaborated by Holmes. The present writer 
classified human periods and conditions by show- 
ing that nature in its stone, bone, shell, and 
vegetable products furnished practically all 
primitive material, with which man could per- 
form such labor as conditions required, as to 
cut, crush, color, pierce, bind, contain, etc., as 
knives, hammers, paints, thorns, thongs, ves- 
sels and similar primitive implements, which in 
combination with one or other material became 
special and in time complex tools, and event- 
ually machines, as human culture increased. 
In this no effort was made to reverse accepted 
classification, but an effort was made to show 
that to insist upon it could only lead to inex- 
tricable confusion. 
European archzeologists deny the finding of 
ground tools in quaternary strata, and account 
for their alleged presence by asserting the intru- 
sion through water, by the burrowing of animals, 
or by the want of scientific training of their dis- 
coverers; but the chief objection is that be- 
cause ground they must be neolithic. In areas 
where only non-chippable stone is found it is 
argued that this constitutes evidence that 
paleolithic man never was there present. If 
only chipped stones are found, the argument is 
made that that of itself is proof of the presence 
of paleolithic man only. The specimens of 
river drift implements in American museums 
are quite commonly wastrels, due to the pres- 
ence of knots or refractory spots in the stone, 
and can not be improved upon by the most 
skillful manipulation. 
The Mousterian specimens found at La Made- 
laine, though commonly considered as being 
rudely chipped, owing to their being worked on 
one side only, resemble greatly the yet ruder 
chipped obsidian objects from Haster Island, 
which if struck upon the opposite side to that 
from which chipped, are destroyed by fracturing 
along lines of lamination or natural cleavage. 
This inferior texture has led many to suppose 
the American Indian to have been an inferior 
stone worker, though the contrary is proved by 
many specimens of obsidian, jasper and chal- 
cedony from the west and southwest. Notwith- 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vox. X. No. 260. 
standing the rude chipping of the cave of La 
Madelaine, it was inhabited by people who were 
skillful artists in the working and etching of 
bone, antler and ivory compared by any stan- 
dard. In this cave and in that of La Biche- 
aux-Roches near Spy in Belgium, and else- 
where, there have been found at the very 
bottom, with the oldest of the extinct cave 
fauna, elaborately carved and bored antlers 
commonly called Batos-de-Commandement, 
bone pins with eyes and without, toggles, and 
other objects of known and unknown use, 
skillfully made from bone, antler and ivory. 
This ivory, antler and bone is much more diffi- 
cult to grind, saw or smooth than is the average 
neolith, yet is sawed, ground, smoothed and 
bored notwithstanding. 
Dr. Wilson himself refers to bored or drilled 
teeth among the tertiary remains presented by 
L’abbé Bourgeois. Near the bottom of the 
cave at Spy were found plates of ivory repre- 
senting seals, ground ochre in a hollow bone, 
and three pieces of burned pottery. In Bel- 
gium, in Wurtemberg, in France, in Baden, 
many of the most distinguished archzeologists: 
have recorded the finding of pottery repeatedly. 
The existence of plateau man, either in Eng- 
land or France before the present rivers began 
to form valleys, has but little evidence to sup- 
port it. 
Similarity of implements in widely separate 
parts of the earth is accounted for by similarity 
of man’s needs, and the natural supply of most. 
regions furnishing objects to pierce, cut, hack, 
or pound with or even to supply covering, in 
the abundance of shells, stones, trees and ani- 
mals to furnish the great essentials of human 
life. And this similarity of man’s tools appears 
to be due more to his efforts to imitate nature 
and its products, than to any inter-communica- 
tion of races or nations carrying their trades 
from continent to continent throughout all 
times, and can not be designated as materialism. 
The suggestion of two invasions of America 
from Europe, one corresponding to the chipped, 
and the other to the ground stone area, will find 
few supporters. 
Dr. Wilson’s belief in man of the Trenton 
gravel and elsewhere in America belonging to 
the paleolithic period has its supporters, though 
