223 



implements of Palaeolithic and earlier age, and of flints 

 showing various types of fracture." A general discussion 

 followed, in which the rival theories were about equally 

 supported. 



The latest attempt to discredit the so-called "eoliths," 

 as man-made implements, is in a paper read before the 

 Geological Society of London, by Mr. S. H. Warren, in 

 January of the present year, on "A Natural Eolith Factory 

 beneath the Thanet Sand." Mr. Warren made his observa- 

 tions on a section exposed in a chalk quarry, showing fractured 

 flints caused by subsoil pressure arising from differential 

 movement or creep [xxviii.]. 



The point of interest m these discussions, so far as the 

 present paper is concerned, is that several authors have drawn 

 comparisons between the Tasmanian stone implements and the 

 eolithic, or prepalaeolithic, implements of Europe. 



Mr. J. Reid Moir has attempted to give the genesis and 

 development of human stone-artefacts in their successive 

 stages, as follow [xi., pp. 38, 48, abbreviated]: — 



1. The most primitive implement known is a tabular 

 piece of flint with a hollow flaked out in one of its edges. 



2. The next stage is represented by a similar piece of 

 tabular flint in which two opposing hollows have been fashioned 

 in its edges, producing a beak-like profile at the anterior 

 region of the implement. 



3. The beak-like profile, with its central ridge or gable, 

 develops later into the rostro-carinate implement, that is 

 triangular in transverse section and has its cutting edge on 

 the dorsal surface. This is especially the type of the supposed 

 implements that occur at the base of the Red Crag (Pliocene). 



4. The rostro-carinate form passes, by lateral chipping, 

 into the early palaeolithic side-scraper in wdiich a cutting-edge 

 extends continuously from the anterior to the posterior region. 



5. The triangular section of the pointed eolithic and 

 rostro-carinate implements is transformed, in the earliest 

 palaeoliths, into a section which is roughly rhomboidal. The 

 most highly evolved palaeoliths are those with straight 

 symmetrical cutting edges, in which the rostro-carinate profile 

 has almost disappeared. 



6. The Chellean Stage. Pointed and ovate palaeoliths 

 of complex section. Implements large and massive. 



7. The Acheulean Stage. Pointed and ovate palaeoliths, 

 elaborately flaked and of complex section. Implements getting 

 smaller. 



8. The Mousterian Stage. Scraper points and flake- 

 implements of simple section. A few coup-de-poings (hand- 



