THE GEOLOGIST. 



to the Yorkshire so-termed fossil specimens, I do admit that I am not a 

 believer in them. I have seen so many deliberate forgeries from thence 

 that I did not require the practical performance before my eyes of a York- 

 shire flint-chipper to satisfy me how able some of the natives of that county 

 were to " come Yorkshire over" us natives here. Our readers are referred 

 to Mr. Wiltshire's paper, which we have read long ago, — but what is there 

 in it that has anything to with the question of the fossil flint-implements 

 of Yorkshire F Mr. Wiltshire takes up an historical topic, and deals with 

 flint-implements from graves and entrencliments at Fimber, — entrench- 

 ments, the origin of which he attributes to the Brigantes. These Fimber 

 weapons are flint flakes, arrow-heads, and sling-stones : none of the first 

 more than two inches long, and none of the latter more than about an inch. 

 All this is very far away from the subject of gravel-drift; implements. 



Heference is made in our correspondent's letter 

 to the exhibition of 268 specimens of, I presume 

 the writer means our readers to infer real fossil 

 imjplemeyits, by Mr. Wiltshire, on the reading of his 

 paper before the Geologists' Association. Now does 

 Mr. Tindall really mean to say that 268 genuine large 

 pointed implements, from gravel or any other geological 

 deposit of Drift age, were then shown or even have 

 been found in Yorkshire ? I mean such old imple- 

 ments as we talk about when we speak of the Abbe- 

 ville, St. Acheul, and Hoxne implements. I was not 

 present at that meeting, and therefore did not see the 

 collection referred to, but I do not believe it contained 

 ten — if, indeed, any such at all. And did not that 

 number include arrowheads, flakes, and all sorts of 

 things .P* 



That there may be no mistake about the sort of 

 Large pointed imple- ^^^^ implements we mean, we annex a woodcut nat. 

 ment (5 nat. size), size) of the pointed kind, to which our remarks are 

 restricted. 



Mr. Tindall tells us he has three pointed tools with ground points : will 

 he kindly transmit them to us for inspection, and will he tell us were not 

 these found on the surface or in graves ? If Mr. Tindall has three real 

 fossil pointed implements, ground, he may pride himself on their unique- 

 ness, and geologists on having got another evidence of the progress of the 

 primitive men in their flint-chipping art, and a consequently additional 

 proof of the primitiveness and antiquity of the unground implements ; but 

 they will be of no value to anybody unless the exact locality or conditions 

 of the discovery is accurately narrated. 



Mr. Tindall further states, that the deeper down in the Yorkshire beds 

 the more primitive the weapons ; and that there is a regular stratigraphi- 

 cal order of the advance of the workmanship. Will he tell us any one 

 such section that will bear the inspection of ourselves, or Mr. Prestwich, 

 Mr. Evans, or any other competent geologist. Will he furnish us with a 

 list of the weapons fonnd in Yorkshire by himself and others, and give 

 the locality and stratigraphical and archaeological conditions of each find? 

 In this way, if right, he will do scieace the greatest service ; if wrong, 

 then the world will justify our scruples respecting the Yorkshire imple- 

 ments. 



* In Mr. AYiltsliire's paper it is stated that he exhibited 268 flint implements fomid 

 by Mr. ]\lortimcr and his children at Fimber. These were therefore historic aud not 

 fossil implements at all. — S. J. M. 



