280 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



which it is a most wonderful and admirable thing to see them make out of the stone ; and the 

 ingenuity which invented this art is much to be praised. They are made and got out of the 

 stone (if one can explain it) in this manner. One of these Indian workmen sits down upon 

 the ground, and takes a piece of this black stone, which is like jet, and hard as flint, and is a 

 stone which might be called precious, more beautiful and brilliant than alabaster or jasper, 

 so much so that of it are made tablets and mirrors. The piece they take is about eight inches 

 long or rather more, and as thick as one's leg or rather less, and cylindrical; they have a 

 stick as large as the shaft of a lance, and three cubits or rather more in length. ; and at the 

 end of it they fasten firmly another piece of wood, eight inches long, to give more weight to 

 tins part ; then, pressing their naked feet together, they hold the stone as with a pair of 

 pincers or the vice of a carpenter's bench. They take the stick, which is cut off smooth at 

 the end, with both hands, and set it well home against the edge of the front of the stone 

 (y ponenlo avesar con el canto de la frente de la piedraj which also is cut smooth in that part ; 

 and then they press it against their breast, and with the force of the pressure there flies off 

 a knife, with its point, and edge on each side, as neatly as if one were to make them of a tur- 

 nip with a sharp knife, or of iron in the fire. Then they sharpen it on a stone, using a hone 

 to give it a very fine edge ; and in a very short time these workmen will make more than 

 twenty knives in the aforesaid manner. They come out of the same shape as our barbers' 

 lancets, except that they have a rib up the middle, and have a slight graceful curve towards 

 the point. They will cut and shave the hair the first time they are used, at the first cut nearly 

 as well as a steel razor, but they lose their edge at the second cut ; and so, to finish shaving 

 one's beard or hair, one after another has to be used; though indeed they are cheap, and 

 spoiling them is of no consequence. Many Spaniards, both regular and secular clergy, have 

 been shaved with them, especially at the beginning of the colonization of these realms, when 

 there was no such abundance as now of the necessary instruments, and people who gain 

 their livelihood by practising this occupation. But I conclude by saying that it is an aclmira- 

 ble thing to see them made, and no small argument for the capacity of the men who found 

 out such an invention.' " 



Now we take our ieave of ■ • Anahuac we have read it from beginning to 

 end and have been delighted with it. Our readers will be the same if they 

 buy it and read it right through as we have done. 



We have to thank Mr. Tylor for the use of some of the excellent woodcuts 

 with which his book is copiously illustrated. 



Primeval Man. By the Rev. Dr. Anderson, P.G.S. Edinburgn s 

 Paton and Ritchie, 1861. 



This small Pamphlet, a report and address to the Graduates' Association at 

 St. Andrew's, has been sent to us by its author, the Rev. Dr. Anderson of Dura 

 Den, who takes views on the subject of flint-implements and their bearings on 

 the question of the great antiquity of man like those expressed by M. Robert in 

 his late correspondence with M. Boucher de Perthes, namely, that there had been 

 much commingling by diluvial or torrential action of the bones and debris em- 

 bedded in the more ancient pleistocene beds, with more recent remains and 

 more modern sediments and deposits. 



Geological changes are daily falling within our own observations, and scarcely 

 a year elapses without something occurring worthy to be noticed. The Murray- 

 shire floods of 1829 ; then in the spring of 1859, at the breaking up of the 

 ice in the river Spey and its tributaries, and the vast accumulation of sand and 

 gravel near the junction of the Eden with the Cerees Burn, are quoted 

 by Dr. Anderson who deduces from these and similar modern instances 

 that the mere position of the beds of gravel and silt in which the flint weapons 

 are found does not necessarialy determine their time, or even relative ages one 

 with another. Many of them may not be in their original places, but have been 

 Shifted and carried to other localities, either suddenly by river-flooding, or slowly 

 and gradually by the eroding action of rains and runlets of streams, 



Although these opinions are not in strict accordance with our own, we are 

 always ready in concede a portion of our pages in stating the opposing views of 

 ot hers, whenever those views have auy merit. 



We are sorry, however, that Dr. Anderson should have misinterpreted and 

 mis-slated some of our thoughts expressed in a former volume of "The Geolo- 

 gist/' but as we feel quite sure this was not intentional on his part, we refrain 

 From further comment ou that subject. 



