FOSSIL FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



23 



done to a rib of a Megaceros hibernicus, and attributed it to the point of the 

 antler of another deer ; but now there seems more probability that the injury 

 in question might have been effected by one of these so-called " celts.' 5 M. 

 Lartet has also given us accounts of fossil mammalian bones bearing incisions 

 and marks made by apparently blunt weapons, such as would have been 

 produced by these flint-implements. 



Fig. 15* — Stone Hatchet, with Handle, from New Caledonia, South Pacific Ocean. Size : length 

 with handle, 19 inches ; head of hatchet, 10 inches. 



We have figured (fig. 15) a stone adze from New Caledonia, to show by a 

 comparison with its form that the fossil implements could not have been 

 similarly lashed on and used for the purposes for which such instruments are 

 adapted, and which thus affords a negative evidence in favour of the idea of 

 their being rude spear-heads. 



Besides the larger spear-shaped and pear-shaped weapons, there were smaller 

 and flatter flints, of an oval shape, which it is thought were used as sling-stones 

 or as axes. The first of our examples of this kind (fig. 1G) was found in the 



Fig. 16. — Small Flint Instrument from the Fig. 17. — Small Flint Instrument from Gravel 

 Gravel of Amiens. Size, 4 inches by at Hoxne, Suffolk. Size, 4 inches by 

 2f inches. by 1\ inches. 



drift-gravel of Amiens, by M. Boucher de Perthes; the second (fig. 17) at 

 Hoxne, in 1797, by Mr. Erere ; the latter is preserved in the collection of the 

 Society of Antiquaries. 



