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The Museum Gazette 



than clubs. Coeval probably with these would be stones, 

 not wrought or fractured in any way, but chosen on account 

 of peculiarity of shape. Where flint was obtainable it would 

 be the most attractive. On wood and stone there might soon 

 follow bone and horn, and some makeshift for cordage pre- 

 pared from bark or grass. Of the substances mentioned, all 

 except the stones are perishable, and thus it has come about 

 that scarcely a vestige of primaeval contrivances remains to 

 us except the tools of stone. 



Our school children are now as familiar with the Stone 

 Age as they are with that of Julius Caesar, and are instructed 

 to place stone, bronze and iron in their proper order. So 

 far so good, but it is to be feared that but little attempt has 

 been made by most of us to familiarise our minds with the 

 enormous duration of the first of these ages as compared with 

 those which followed it. An attempt to display these periods 

 in schedule form excites in the minds even of those amongst 

 us fairly well accustomed to such considerations, a feeling 

 of sceptical amazement. Yet it is absolutely necessary that 

 we should make some effort towards a realisation by the 

 imagination of these facts if we would deal faithfully with 

 them. Not even the rudest palaeolithic flint was a primitive 

 tool, others still less recondite had preceded it and had perhaps 

 been in use for many ages before it was evolved. These 

 considerations have been suggested in reference to the com- 

 paratively novel observations on what have been termed 

 eolithic flints. These stones are rude to the last degree and 

 show little indeed which can be claimed as evidence of man's 

 hand upon them. Yet they have peculiarities which must 

 claim attention, and it is therefore appropriate to remind 

 ourselves that there must have been preliminary stages even 

 in the art of flint-chipping. 



Most of our Museums now contain series of specimens of 

 these flints — collected usually by the zeal of Mr. B. Harri- 

 son, of Ightham, on the Kent plateaux. We need not there- 

 fore stop to describe them. They must be seen and handled. 



