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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Dec. 28, 1888. 



lived here, and that they probably lived by fishing, as 

 the Esquimaux did in the present day. In that case im- 

 plements of this kind would be very useful for chopping 

 holes in the ice, in order to let down a line to get at the 

 fish. Such instruments might easily escape from the 

 grasp of the person and drop to the bottom of the water, 

 and that might account for the fact that that type of 

 instrument was especially common in gravels, where 

 they had sometimes been found in considerable numbers. 

 But in some cases there could be little doubt that these 

 implements were fixed in handles and served as hatchets 

 or weapons, and skulls and other bones of animals 

 had been found actually perforated with those 

 implements, the implements sticking in portions 

 of the skull. Another use to which an implement of that 

 kind could be put was splitting open bone and taking 

 out the marrow, and in many cases great heaps of those 

 bones, all carefully split by sharp instruments of 

 that kind could be found. Then they had another 

 type, which was found with these types — the 

 ovoid type. They were generally much smaller than the 

 others. The use to which these were put was also 

 problematical, but it had been suggested, with great 

 show of reason, that in many cases they were 

 used for scraping skins, and that such scrapers 

 were constantly employed at the present day with or 

 without handles. There were many examples. Here 

 was a specimen of the scraper fixed into a wooden 

 handle, and it was used for dressing skins. The same 

 sort of implement was largely used by the Esquimaux 

 and many other people. Lastly, they might have simple 

 flakes more or less dexterously struck off, which were 

 employed for cutting pieces of wood, or bone, or other 

 articles, for which purpose they were very effective. 

 Passing from those rude and simple types, they found 

 knives, either straight or curved, often with their edges 

 dressed in the most beautiful manner. They found 

 spear-heads, and javelin-heads. Then they had the 

 wonderful variety of beautiful objects known as 

 arrow-heads. From those types they passed to the 

 forms which were very ornamental. Sometimes 

 after an instrument was made, it was beautifully 

 ornamented. Here was one ornamented with grooves, 

 and another ornamented by very careful and elaborate 

 chipping. It might be surmised that many of these were 

 made more for show than for use; they were emblematical 

 rather than useful weapons. They were like the maces 

 and swords of state which were borne before Royal people 

 and Lord Mayors, and such great folk, which were not 

 employed for knocking people down or stabbing them. 

 Next to chipping an ornamental surface to the objects, 

 they found that the grinding and polishing of implements 

 by sand and similar materials was practised by the use 

 of sand and water and rudely chipped implements. 

 Then they might have grooves cut through their 

 crown, so as to allow the handle to be fitted more 

 firmly ; and in other cases holes were drilled right 

 through the tools. In these cases the hole was probably 

 produced with very great labour by means of a pointed 

 stick used with plenty of sand and water, and worked 

 after the fashion of a centre-bit; in that way a hole 

 could be driven through the hardest stone. This, 

 of course, would take a long time, but savages generally 

 had plenty of leisure. Now a great number of other 

 weapons and instruments might be mentioned as being 

 made of flint or similar material. There were pieces of 

 flint chipped so as to serve best for striking lights, and 



these strike-a-lights were made in the earliest times, as 

 they were made quite down to within the memory of 

 some of those present. Strike-a-lights were most pro- 

 bably used first with iron pyrites or other pieces of 

 flint, and till quite recent times they were employed 

 with the steel and tinder box. Besides this, flint and 

 other materials were used to make hammers. Here were 

 some of the hammers which were actually employed. 

 By successive blows flakes had been dexterously struck 

 off, and then the core was thrown on one side when a 

 sufficient number of flakes had been taken from it. 

 Stones were found slightly rounded by a few blows so 

 as to serve probably as sling stones, others as heads of 

 clubs sometimes, and sometimes for attaching to nets to 

 sink them to the bottom ; sometimes the flakes were set 

 in great masses on blocks of wood so as to form thresh- 

 ing instruments. In Asia Minor at the present day sets 

 of flint flakes could be purchased. Then there were 

 pestles and mortars, a large stone with a curved surface 

 and rubbers, by means of which grain could be rubbed 

 down to the condition of flour ; and lastly, there was no 

 doubt that the earliest surgical instruments were made 

 of these flints. Long after flints and similar materials had 

 ceased to be employed for other purposes they were used 

 for certain delicate surgical operations, and one could easily 

 see that a beautifully clean piece of flint was very preferable 

 to instruments made of bronze such as were employed by 

 Eastern surgeons at the present day. Lastly, he might 

 mention that some of the more delicately struck-off flakes 

 were employed for cutting out needles, harpoons, and 

 other articles, and in the use of delicate fragments ot 

 flint they saw the origin of art. The drawings and 

 sculptures which had come down to them in ivory were 

 worked by sharp fragments of flint, or else carried out in 

 the manner illustrated. Here they saw the origin of art. 

 Now with regard to the mode of fastening these im- 

 plements to their handles. Sometimes the implements 

 were clearly inserted in a hole in a piece of wood that 

 served as a handle; a hole was made into the handle, and 

 the flint driven into it, and every blow served to fix it 

 more firmly. In other instances, as the wood would 

 wear away, the stone instrument was fitted into a socket 

 of bone and the bone fixed in the weapon handle. 

 Sometimes bone only was employed. From these simple 

 cases they had others where a stone i mplemen t was tied into 

 the boneor weapon handle either by means of athong made 

 of vegetable fibre or the skin of an animal, as they could 

 be wetted and dried, and in drying they often held 

 the mass very firmly in its place. In other instances, 

 as in Western Australia, masses of gum or resin were 

 employed and melted round the natural flint or other 

 stone. In a diagram was shown a handle fastened to a 

 scraper by means of resin, and sometimes both cords and 

 resin were employed. In other cases there was a groove 

 cut and the handle pressed forcibly into it, or sometimes 

 the handle was twisted round and fastened to a straight 

 handle, the whole being bound strongly together ; and, 

 last, they came to a case where holes were drilled to 

 hold the handle. In some cases they had actually 

 found the workshops where the flint implements had 

 been made. They occasionally found, sometimes in an 

 old pit where quantities of gravel or other materials had 

 been dug out, and sometimes in other places where 

 these remarkable tools were formed, the flakes which 

 had been struck off in fashioning the instrument, and 

 they found the cores from which large flakes had been 

 struck, and sometimes long flakes which could be 



