A STUDY OF PREHISTOKIC ANTHROPOLOGY. 609 



physical changes on their surface. Some show a brilliancy called 

 patiue; in some the color has changed to red and yellow, and so on 

 through the scale to chalky white. This change is produced by con- 

 tact with the atmosphere or earth, or by the contact of water which 

 has percolated through the various earths in the neighborhood, gener- 

 ally those containing iron, and has changed the chemical combination 

 of the flint on its surface. This change sometimes extends deep into 

 the stone, and in small specimens may pass entirely through it. In 

 the United States all this might be called weathering; iu France it is 

 called patine. The objection to the former word is that it conveys, 

 possibly involuntarily, some relation to the weather, while the patine 

 may be formed on a specimen deep in the earth. 



Dendrites are also formed on the specimens. These changes are all 

 evidences of antiquity of the specimen, and to the experienced eye 

 become testimonials of its genuineness. 



The use of the Chellian implement is unknown. The wise men of 

 Europe have made many guesses and suppositions, but these are at 

 best nothing more than speculation. Many of them bear undoubted 

 traces of use on their edges. Mr. John Evaus in his latest work re- 

 verts to his first and original opinion, "That it is nearly useless to 

 speculate as to the purposes to which they were applied." Sir John 

 Lubbock says, "Almost as well might we ask to what would they 

 not be applied. Infinite as are our instruments, who would attempt 

 even at present to say what was the use of a knife ? But the primitive 

 savage had no such choice of tools. We see before us, perhaps, the 

 whole contents of his workshop, and with these weapons, rude as they 

 seem to us, he may have cut down trees, scooped them out into canoes, 

 grubbed up roots, kill animals and enemies, cut up his food, made holes 

 in winter through the ice, prepared firewood," etc.* 



The implements of the Chellian epoch are found substantially all 

 over the world. This would indicate, if it does not prove, the expan- 

 sion of that civilization, and the duration of that epoch to have been 

 much greater than has ever heretofore been supposed. Those from Great 

 Britain are found only in the eastern and southern portion, from Nor- 

 folk around to Devonshire and Land's End. They have been found in 

 every quarter of France and southern Belgium, Italy in all its parts, 

 also iu Spain and Portugal. They have not been found in northern 

 England, Scotland, Wales, or northern Ireland. Neither in northern 

 Belgium, or Holland, or in the Scandinavian countries, or that por- 

 tion of Germany bordering on the Baltic, or in northern Eussia. 

 These countries were probably covered at that epoch with glaciers, or 

 possibly by the Great North Sea. Paleolithic implements have been 

 found in Asia, Palestine, in India from Bombay to Calcutta, in Cam- 

 bodia, Japan, in Africa all along the shores of the Mediterranean, and 

 up the valley of the Nile, and lately in the United States. 



* Prehistoric Times, j). 3G4. 



H. Mis. 142— pt. 2 39 



