1895.] On the Evolution of the Art of Working in Stone. 27 
` in such manipulation, would have acquired the skill requisite 
to batter an implement into shape, and subsequently, if neces- 
sary, to grind a blade toit.” The expression was thought to be 
considerate of the feelings of those who advance the untena- 
ble theory that man lived through centuries upon centuries of 
time, chipping stones, and never battering them into shape, 
nor even learning the process by which it was done; when as 
a fact, the art of chipping, if attempted upon a granular, 
igneous or metamorphic stone, of which implements are com- 
monly made, would by that very act become a battering pro- 
cess; for such stones do not chip when struck an ordinary 
ow. 
This is not a “theory” nor is it “based upon the writers 
own experience as an amateur maker of stone implements.” 
Mr. Read has not been particular in the selection of the terms 
used, so it may be appropriate to say here that the writer has 
made few stone implements, and those few are exhibited in 
cases in the U. S. National Museum along with the tools with 
which they were made, and all are numbered and labeled. 
In doing the work, much material was necessarily destroyed, 
but the results appear fully to justify the expenditure, and are 
considered as valuable by those who have given them careful 
scrutiny. 
Mr. Read is unfortunate in asking if the writer has ever 
seen a specimen of Kafir or Polynesian carpentry, and says 
“both cut everything from the solid,” and because the Brit- 
ish Museum possesses specimens of chairs, with legs and backs 
similar to European furniture, but cut from solid blocks, asks 
“ Are we to think that they began with joining, without doubt 
the easier method, and finally came to the more difficult, the 
cutting from the solid?” “Surely not.” Mr. Read says “the 
natural explanation is the best, simply that the easier method 
did not oceur to them.” 
Let us answer this fally:. The writer has seen Polynesian and 
African carpentry, in both of which the U. S. National Museum 
is rich, but these people do not differ in that respect from 
most, if not all other savage races of the world in cutting” 
almost everything from the solid. Mr. Read’s assertion that 
