THE GEOLOGIST. 
to tlie Yorksliire so-termed fossil specimens, I do admit tliat 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 ? Mr. Wiltshire takes up an historical topic, and deals with 
flint-implements from graves and entrenchments 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. 
Eeference 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 
implements, by Mr. Wiltshire, on the reading of his 
paper before the Geologists' Association. JN^ow 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 ?* 
That there may be no mistake about the sort of 
Large pointed imple- Ai^^ implements we mean, we annex a woodcut nat. 
ment (i 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- 
eal 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 found in Yorksliire by himself and others, and give 
the locality and stratigraphical and archaeological conditions of each find ? 
In this way, if right, he will do science the greatest service ; if wrong, 
then the world will justify our scruples respecting the Yorksliire imple- 
ments. 
* In Mr. Wiltshire's paper it is stated that he exhibited 268 flint implements found 
by Mr. Mortimer and his children at Timber. These were therefore historic and not 
fossil implements at all. — S. J. M. 
