516 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
875 yards. Such was the position of the lava on the 6th of February last. 
Since then the eastern stream has been completely arrested. The western 
one, on the contrary, has continued its progress, and has divided into two 
narrow currents, both of which lie between Mounts Stomello and Crisimo. 
The point of separation of these two streams is at a height of 1,444 yards, 
and is consequently higher than the base of Stornello. The nearest of the 
two streams to the cone, to which M. Fouque has given the name of Antonio, 
continued to flow up to the 21st of February, when it ceased at a height of 
about 1,130 yards. The other, which he calls Carmello, travelled on till the 
25th of February, and ceased at a height of 1,300 yards. Although at the 
period when M. Fouque wrote (March 10th) both stream,' had terminated, 
they still continued to spread laterally. Vide Comptes JRendes, March 20th. 
Are the Flint Implements from the Drift Authentic ? — A pamphlet has 
appeared from the pen of Mr. Nicholas Whitley, of the Royal Institution of 
Cornwall, in which it is attempted to be proved that the so-called flint im- 
plements are not the result of hutnan workmanship. The writer’s logic, which 
we can hardly approve of, has been pushed to the most extreme lengths. 
Although we agree with him in thinking that many of the so-caUed flint 
instruments are the result of natural operations, we are far from believing 
that all are spurious. We subjoin an abstract of Mr. Whitley’s argu- 
ments : — 
(1.) The “ implements ” are all of flint. The tools employed by men of the 
recognized archseological stone age are made of stones of various kinds, of 
which there are examples of serpentine, granular greenstone, indurated clay- 
stone, trap greenstone, claystone, quartz, syenite, chest, &c. Why, therefore, 
should the only weapons in the drift deposit be manufactured from flint 
solely ? 
(2.) The “ implements ” are all of one class — axes. Were they then a race 
of carpenters ? Man is a cooking animal ; and if ten thousand axes have 
been found, surely one seething-pot or drinking-cup ought to have turned up. 
He needs shelter, but no remnant of his clothing or hut has been found. 
Almost everywhere where there are chalk flints we find axes, and nothing but 
axes. 
(3.) There is a gradation in form from the very rough fracture of the flint 
to the perfect almond-shaped implement. Let the most enthusiastic believer 
in their authenticity examine carefully the one thousand implements in the 
Abbeville Museum, and he would probably reject two-thirds as bearmg no 
evidence of the work of man. But it would be impossible for him to say 
where nature ended and art began. 
(4.) Some of the implements are admirable illustrations of the form produced 
by the natural fracture of the egg-shaped flint nodule. 
(5.) It is supposed that these weapons were used for cutting down timber 
and scooping out canoes. But it should be remembered that the gravels in 
which they are found were formed during a severe Arctic climate, in which 
no tree but a stunted birch could have grown, certainly none large enough to 
form a canoe. 
(6.) Their number. The implements are found by thousands in small areas, 
and in numbers quite out of proportion to the thinly scattered population 
