268 LECTUEE X. 



or to gatlier new facts, wMlst not a few allowed themselves to 

 be overreaclied by the workmen, wbo soon established a regular 

 manufactory of flint implements. It must be admitted that 

 the coolness with which the news of the discovery was at first 

 received, was partly due to the exaggerations of the discoverer, 

 from which charge he is not altogether free even now ; for he 

 sees in some of these worked flints rude delineations of human 

 and animal heads, and in others instruments for cutting- the 

 hair and nails. We may reasonably doubt whether art, in its 

 rudest beginning, included hair-dressing in the primeval epoch 

 of the human species. 



I shall pass over the desperate attempts made to explain 

 away the formation of these implements. They afibrd a 

 melancholy proof of that disposition to regain, at any price, 

 even at the expense of common sense, a lost position. It is 

 proved, beyond any doubt, that these flints have been fabricated 

 by man^s hand ; that they owe their origin to no other cause j 

 that they lie in beds which, since their deposition, have never 

 been disturbed ; and that they unquestionably date from the 

 same period as that of the extinct animals. 



Let us now examine the flint implements. They are very 

 rudely fabricated, and manifestly split oS" from the flint stones 

 found in the district. Two stones were struck against each 

 other until one was shattered, and such splinters collected as 

 appeared suitable for being worked. As the flint pebbles have 

 a round or oval form, it is natural that the splinters should more 

 or less exhibit the same shape, and that the centre of the pieces 

 should be thicker, and present an edge lengthwise. Flint has 

 nearly the same fracture as glass. On some of the stone 

 hatchets is seen the crust which flints imbedded in chalk 

 always present. These instruments were either not finished, 

 or the workmen found that condition suitable for their pur- 

 pose, and so left them as they were. The edges are mostly 

 sharp. There can be no doubt but these implements have 

 been manufactured on the spot, or in the vicinity, as they 

 are but little rolled. This assumption is further supported 

 by the circumstance that the hatchets are mostly found at 

 the base of the formation in large quantities, as during the 



