364 Bibliographical Notices. 



thus arising are discussed by M. Boucher de Perthes with clearness 

 and elegance, with comprehension of mind, and with the calmness of 

 a philosopher and a lover of truth. 



That among the author's numerous speculations there should be 

 some liable to objection was to be expected. We certainly dissent 

 from his novel hypothesis on the subject of Celts, the haches Cel- 

 tiques, or haches Gauloises of the French. In addition to the great 

 variety of suppositions which have been advanced concerning their 

 use, and which he disavows, M. Boucher de Perthes imagines, that 

 the Celts both of stone and metal may have been used as weights 

 and measures, and may have served as a medium of exchange. 



For more than 150 years the objects called Celts have attracted 

 the attention of antiquaries ; but whilst they have made extensive 

 and very curious collections of spear-heads, arrow-heads, and in- 

 struments resembling wedges, chisels or hatchets, which have been 

 wrought in stone, and exactly resemble those still used by North 

 American Indians, South- Sea Islanders, and other nations in a very 

 low state of civilization ; they have until very lately omitted to no- 

 tice those implements of still more simple construction, which are 

 to be discovered in similar situations. But undoubtedly there were 

 such tools, the use of which was adopted in the earlier stages of the 

 arts of life. A New-Zealander's battle-axe, made of hard tough jade, 

 polished, and shaped with exact symmetry, could only be produced 

 by great labour, skill and perseverance ; and such weapons were 

 found by Cook and other navigators to be highly prized by their 

 possessors. Many ages before the rude savage could attain to such 

 a degree of perfection in the working of stone, he must have in- 

 vented easier and simpler methods of operation. If w T e do but strike 

 one nodule of flint against another, we produce fragments with points 

 and sharp edges, which only require to be fixed in handles of hollow 

 bone or horn in order to be of great service in the fashioning of 

 wooden implements of various kinds. Of this class are many of the 

 tools which M. Boucher de Perthes has collected, and he has pro- 

 duced them in the different stages of manufacture, showing the 

 transition from the splinters as they first flew from the block of stone 

 to the more exact shapes of spear-heads, arrow-heads, hatchets, chi- 

 sels, and other implements. But what were the quadrupeds which 

 fell before these weapons ? Not the sheep or the goat. It appears 

 that they had not yet reached these western borders. But the ele- 

 phant, the mastodon, the rhinoceros, the aurochs, and the gigantic 

 Irish elk. 



Dr. Mantell, in the first volume of his \ Wonders of Geology/ has 

 mentioned various circumstances which show that the last-named 

 animal was the contemporary of man. Some further observations, 

 which have been made in Ireland, and which tend to establish the 

 same fact, have been recorded by Mr. Charlesworth. Professor 

 Ansted observes, that the mastodon may possibly have reached down 

 almost to the human period* ; and it will be remembered, that, when 

 the magnificent and complete skeleton of that animal, now preserved 

 * Picturesque Sketches of Creation, p. 301. 



