Know.ts— Flint Implements from North-East of Ireland. 443 
Fig. 8, Pl. xxmt., shows a small scraper-lke object from the same 
gravels, natural size. The figure, however, does not do justice to 
the dressing along the edges. 
Conctuston.—I have now shown, as I did in my former Paper, 
that those worked flints which I class as the older series are found at 
considerable depths beneath the surface in the gravels of the raised 
beach. They thus differ from neolithic objects, which are found on 
the surface. 
That a thick, weathered crust had been formed, and the flints 
rolled about by the waves till the crust was in part worn away, before 
the gravels of the raised beach were formed; while: implements of 
admitted neolithic age are neither so encrusted nor found in the 
gravels. 
That we find, at various places round the coast, the neolithic flint 
implement-makers trying to re-work the older flint flakes and cores, 
which were deeply incrusted even in their time. 
Even the worked flints from the boulder clay and interglacial 
gravels are not, for the present, taken into account. I think I have 
given sufficient evidence to prove that we have two sets of flint 
implements in the north-east of Ireland, one of which is older than 
the neolithic age. 
There is, however, a difficulty in settling the age of the older 
series. Are they, for instance, older or newer than the paleolithic 
implements? I am hopeful that the interglacial gravels may yet 
throw further light on this point. It appears to me that to English 
archeologists no evidence is satisfactory as proof of flint implements 
being of paleolithic age but the finding with them of remains of 
extinct mammalia. You must have river gravels and extinct mammalha 
or caves and extinct mammalia. I have not been able to find remains 
of extinct mammalia in connexion with my older set of implements ; 
and therefore I have abstained from using the term paleolithic. It 
would seem to me that the term has become so identified with imple- 
ments of a certain age, make, and finish, that it would appear out of 
place to apply it to implements of a different make, whether newer or 
older. 
The implements of paleolithic age show such skill in workman- 
ship, that anyone must see that they were not the weapons used by 
man in his earliest stage of development; and that before acquiring 
the skill to make a paleolithic weapon he must have passed through 
several stages. At first he would use natural stones; but experience 
would soon teach him that stones with a point were more effective 
than rounded pebbles; and necessity would soon induce him to try his 
hand at making pointed weapons. 
Anyone comparing a series of the large pear-shaped weapons from 
the raised beach with paleolithic weapons would find some points of 
likeness. There would be the heavy butt, the pear shape, and point 
in both cases; but owing to the ruder make and finish of the former 
series, he would naturally conclude that they were the older of the 
