Putnam.] 422 [Dee. 21 



ments from France and England are made of nodules of flint, and 

 that is the material of those before us from those countries. You 

 will notice that while slight, if any, signs of use can be traced, 

 they have a remarkable gloss over their chipped portions, which is 

 analogous to the patina upon old bronze, and is an unquestionable 

 sign of great age. Implements of the same character, but made 

 of chert, quartzite, or other stones, have been found in the gravel 

 deposits of England, and, I believe, on the continent also, but they 

 are extremely rare. 



In this country the term "flints" is applied generally to chipped 

 implements made of chert, jasper, chalcedony, obsidian, quartz and 

 other stones, but it is remarkable that with four exceptions all the 

 implements known from the Trenton gravels are made of argillite, 

 and that those from Little Falls are, without exception, made of 

 quartz. The exceptions from Trenton are two of quartz, one of 

 quartzite and one made from a black-chert pebble. 



The first specimen found in Ohio is made from a pebble of black 

 chert and is not only identical with the New Jersey specimen as to 

 mineral but nearly so as to size and shape, and character of the 

 chipping. The other specimen from Ohio is made from a hard dark 

 pebble which has not yet been identified. 



We have thus to compare implements made of several distinct 

 minerals, which would from natural causes splinter and flake in 

 different ways. Yet here before you, made of these several dif- 

 ferent kinds of rocks, are implements identical in shape, often 

 agreeing in size and in minute points of structure, from both sides 

 of the Atlantic and from distant points in America. If there are 

 any persons present who may doubt the artificial character of the 

 specimens, I can only say open your eyes and be convinced. 



The rudest implement in the lot is the dark pebble found by Dr. 

 Metz, twenty-five feet from the surface, in the gravel at Loveland, 

 in the Little Miami valley, in 1886. That pieces or chips had been 

 struck from this stone we must all admit, but that they were struck 

 off by the hand of man we might well question had we not such a 

 series as this now before us ; where, with this rude specimen from 

 the gravels of Ohio, we can make a close comparison with this 

 one, of a different stone, from Le Moustier, an unquestionable im- 

 plement of the early cave-men of France. A comparison of the 

 two with this implement of argillite from Trenton (figure 418 of 

 Dr. Abbott's Primitive Industry) and with this one of flint from 

 the gravels of Milford Hill in England, shows how, in each succes- 



