STONE AGE IN AFRICA. 139 



rious localities supplied a particular material in the absence all others; but I do 

 not think a vestige of the so-called ' Stone Age' has been found in Central Africa. 

 "Trusting that this short opinion may be sufficient in reply to your note, I 

 am Truly yours, etc., 



Samuel W. Baker." 



There has certainly so fur been discovered not the least trace of a stone age 

 in the interior of Africa ; yet, no one has gone there purposely to look for it. 

 While the observations and opinions of Sir Samuel W. Baker, (in many respects 

 one of the most remarkable of living men), must be accepted as the highest au- 

 thority in matters pertaining to his sphere of labors, it must be borne in mind that 

 neither he, or any other intrepid men of education who have penetrated the 

 depths of that strange continent, were especially devoted to the solution of its 

 archaeological or anthropological problems. 



Vestiges of a stone age have been found in several parts of Africa bordering 

 upon the coast; but so singularly limited in the number of objects discovered, 

 when compared to the great profusion of lithic remains collected in the other con- 

 tinents, as to strengthen the impression that they may have been of extraneous 

 and intrusive origin. 



A few chipped flint weapons and neolithic polished celts from Algeria are in 

 the museums of France, presumed to be relics of the Iberians, who crossed the 

 Mediterranean about the close of the Pleistocene Age, and settling on the Barbary 

 coast became the progenitors of the f^erber and Moorish peoples. 



A flint arrow-head is reported to have been found in Sierra Leone ; and Mr. 

 John Evans, F. R. S., F. S. A., mentions in his great work on "The Ancient 

 Stone Implements of Great Britain," a celt, a hammer-stone, pestles, and some 

 other articles of stone, in the Blackmore Museum, collected in the neighborhood 

 of the Cape of Good Hope. The same author states that flint flakes are of fre- 

 quent occurrence in the diamond diggings, and have been noticed in many dif- 

 ferent parts of the continent from the Cape to Tripoli. 



In the African department of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, 

 were several palaeolithic cutting implements of stone which the attendant in 

 charge informed me were found not far from the coast in the vicinity of Port 

 Beaufort. They were merely flat, irregularly round water-worn pebbles, of dark 

 trap or hornblende, as large across as the palm of the hand, averaging three- 

 fourths of an inch in thickness and ground down at one side to a sharp cutting 

 edge. Neolithic stone implements have frequently been recovered from the old 

 Egyptian tombs, and their manner of use is historical. Herodotus and Diodorus 

 Siculus tell us that in the ancient rite of embalming, the body was always cut 

 open with these sharp stone instruments, but the brain was extracted with a crook- 

 iron. Recently, however, another class of stone implements have been found, 

 deep below the surface of the ground, in the valley of the Nile, which Prof. 

 Henry W. Haynes, who went to Cairo purposely to investigate them, after criti- 

 cal examination and comparisons, pronounces unquestionably palaeolithic, of the 



