FOSSIL FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



19 



the centre, at the same time that they are grouped in concentric zones.* 

 Central symmetrical arrangement may visibly occur in minerals of 

 very diverse composition. When it is tolerably regular, as in the 

 case of the globular minerals, it gives a radial structure. 



(To be Continued.) 



THE EVIDENCES OF THE GEOLOGICAL AGE AND 

 HUMAN MANUFACTURE OF THE FOSSIL FLINT 

 IMPLEMENTS.! 



By the Editor. 

 ( Continued from vol. in., page 408.^ 



Amiens and Abbeville do not, however, enjoy a monopoly in these flint imple- 

 ments ; they are found, apparently, all over the earth. At any rate, we can boast 

 in our land of such treasures, and we can proudly record that the first discovered 

 specimens belong to England. Let Aniens and Abbeville by all means be 

 commemorated as the scenes of M. Boucher de Perthes' persevering investiga- 

 tions, which have furnished the incitement to the present remarkable inquiry — 

 let the names of Boucher de Perthes, Prestwich, Falconer, Flower, and Evans, 

 be duly honoured as the pioneers of the investigation ; 

 but let us also think of Hoxne, Grays, Ilford, Maid- 

 stone, Stanway, and the scores of other places where 

 mammalian bones have been found in our own land — 

 and, let us hope that our young geologists will set to 

 work, and reap a rich harvest in the yet ungarnered 

 fields. Does not this first recorded implement — this 

 earliest discovered relic — (fig. 5) treasured and pre- 

 served in the Sloane collection, the nucleus of the British 

 Museum, and entered in that old catalogue, two hun- 

 dred years ago — encourage them. Does it not say in 

 unmistakable language " Under your feet these relics 

 may be found ?" 



There is another of these spear-shaped flints c which 

 has obtained a great deal of notoriety in the late dis- 

 cussions. It was found at Hoxne, in Suffolk — a place 

 fmm&'in a* 11 * I ? iplement memorable in the history of the good king Edmund, 

 b°e^rer750. ra inSi^iieCoi- ^ ne sam ^ an( ^ mar ty r — an d was described, and figured 

 lection, British Museum, in the " Archeeologia," ( see cut 9, p. 20 J, by Mr. Frere, 

 Size 7 inches by 4 inches, the finder, who, with remarkable acuteness, seems to 

 have fully comprehended the value and true bearing of his discovery. His 

 paper is, even now, an excellent epitome of the subject ; and we give it at 

 length, just as it was read in 1797, before the Society of Antiquaries of London. 



* Recherches sur les Roches Globulenses : par M. Delesse. (Memoires de la 

 Soc. Geol., 2 ser., t. iv., p. 301.) 



f Being an illustrated explanatory article of Mr. Mackie's Geological Diagram, 

 No. VI. 



