250 A NATURAL 'EOLITH ' FACTORY. [vol. lxxvi, 



and discourage research in the early deposits where the most 

 primitive implements were awaiting recognition. 



Sir Henri: Howorth thought that the facts which the Author 

 had brought before the Society were important and illuminating. 

 They went far to support the view that the case for the existence 

 of Man in Tertiary times in our latitudes is not attested by 

 satisfactory inductive evidence, but is based on untenable 

 premises. 



The case for the existence of Tertiary Man is so weak, when 

 brought face to face with both a priori and deductive arguments, 

 that the burden of proof should be laid on the champions of the 

 new views. The speaker considered that the case as yet presented 

 rests at the best on a few doubtful and ambiguous facts, and 

 ignores a great mass of most potent evidence on the other side. The 

 Author had effectively demonstrated that the so-called ' Eoliths ' 

 were not Eoliths at all, since that name was already appropriated 

 for French stones entirely different from the English examples. 

 Those who hold that the wrongly-called English ' Eoliths ' were 

 not of human origin or the result of design, base their contention 

 first on the fact that the vast majority of them have no assignable 

 purpose, being, so far as can be seen, of no use to human beings ; 

 while the relatively few to which some purpose could perhaps be 

 assigned are either accidental freaks or else aberrant Palaeolithic 

 forms. To contend that the biting of the edges of flakes and 

 angular fragments into a series of notches can only be assigned to 

 human initiative, is simply an attempt to carry the position hx the 

 use. of a negative instead of a positive argument. 



In France and England most effective experiments have shown 

 that similar phenomena can be produced by machinery adapted 

 to breaking hard stones, and the only question that remained to be 

 tested was whether Nature was not capable of producing like 

 effects. The reply that the results in the latter case are not pre- 

 cisely like those specimens which are assigned to human agency 

 is a delusive argument, as no two Avorked flints are exactly alike. 

 What is important, however, is the fact that such phenomena as 

 the flaking of flints and occasional bulbs and also edge-knapping 

 are produced by causes entirely apart from direct human effoi't. 

 The likeness between the flaking produced by Nature and that 

 produced by human agencies is sufficient to shift any burden of 

 direct proof upon those who maintain the human origin of the 

 stones ; and this must not be done by a careful selection of picked 

 specimens, but by a survey of the whole group. The Author had 

 produced an unassailable instance of an undisturbed bed, underlying 

 Tertiary strata, which contains a considerable series of most in- 

 structive specimens gathered together in a small space. In this 

 bed specimens presenting every feature that has been quoted as a 

 criterion of English ' Eoliths ' have been obtained. Not only 

 had the Author found the actual products of Nature's handiwork, 

 but he had also shown effectually how the knapping had been 

 produced. 



