Haynes.] , 272 [Feb. 3, 



I have brought here for your inspection several of these flakes, 

 which I procured at St. Acheul at the same time that I saw dug 

 out these two veritable specimens (although they are unfortunately 

 broken ones) of the carefully chipped, well-shaped, palaeolithic 

 axe of the type of St. Acheul. Here is also for comparison a 

 perfect example of such an axe, as fine a specimen as has ever been 

 discovered. The flakes are evidently pieces struck off from a block 

 of flint during the process of fashioning an axe. Some of them 

 bear plain marks of having been used for cutting, or some other pur- 

 pose, and such are sometimes called " knives." I think, however, 

 it is better to call them " used or worn flakes ;" for they may have 

 subserved some other purpose than cutting. The term " knife," I 

 think, had better be restricted to the more carefully made sort of 

 instrument, of which I have a specimen here. 



Rude and heavy flakes, like these, are what are commonly found 

 in the river-gravel beds. Occasionally, however, one of smaller 

 size and lighter, is met with, somewhat resembling in its shape a 

 roughly-made arrow-head. But such objects exhibit none of that 

 " marvellous skill" in their fabrication, for which President War- 

 ren professed such " great respect." He was evidently thinking 

 of such beautiful objects as we sometimes see now set in gold 

 and worn by ladies as brooches. But such finely chipped arrow- 

 heads are as characteristic of neolithic times, as are the dolmens 

 themselves. The finding of an occasional flake, shaped like a 

 rude arrow-head, is very far from proving that savage man, at the 

 ver}' outset of his career, had developed mental capacity sufficient 

 to enable him to invent so complicated an instrument as the bow 

 and arrow. 



In fact, so great a discovery did this appear to the late Lewis 

 H. Morgan, that he uses it, in his great work upon " Ancient So- 

 ciety," to mark his "Third Division, or Upper Status of Savagery." 

 This, he says, "commenced with the invention of the bow and arrow, 

 and ended with the invention of the art of pottery," p. 10. "As a 

 combination of forces," he continues, " the bow and arrow is so 

 abstruse that not unlikely it owed its origin to accident. The 

 elasticiiy and toughness of certain kinds of wood, the tension of 

 a cord of sinew or vegetable fibre by means of a bent bow, and, 

 finally, their combination to propel an arrow by human muscle, 

 are not very obvious suggestions to the mind of a savage. As 

 elsewhere noted, the bow and arrow are unknown to the Poly- 



