TRUE AND FALSE FLINT WEAPONS. 
31 
hilts built for shelter and defence ; of the people who inhabited 
them, we find the tools they used, the cloth they wove, the corn 
they crushed and baked, and the ornaments they wore ; and 
from the whole we can draw a faithful picture of their labours 
and pursuits. But when we take one step further back into 
the Palceolithic age, we find a complete change in the nature 
and weight of the evidence, that which before was clear and 
undoubted becomes dark and unsatisfactory ; all trace of man 
is lost except by his implements, and these formed of one kind 
of stone — flint — only, of a type wholly different from that of 
the following age, never ground or polished or showing any 
indications of use, and “ so irregular in form as to cause the un- 
practised eye to doubt whether they afford unmistakable evidence 
of design.” ^ 
These stone implements pass by such insensible gradations 
into other forms of fractured flint obviously the result of natural 
causes, that their advocates find it difficult to determine whether 
they are artificial or natural. 
In the Salisbury Museum there is a collection in which an 
attempt is made to distinguish between the true and the false 
implements. 
In the Museum of Practical Greology in Jermyn Street, there 
are a large number of rough stone “ implements ” side by side 
with naturally fractured flints of approximate form, the object 
being to show that the simpler forms " referred to fortuitous 
fracture may have suggested the type of the ‘^undoubtedly 
artificial implements.” But the attempt to refer some to one 
class and some to the other confessedly breaks down on an 
inspection of the labels. Thus in series D, six specimens in 
succession are described as — 
42. “ Seems entirely natural.” 
43. “ Seems also entirely natural — perhaps used. 
44. “ Apparently being dressed into form.” 
44a. “ Natural or partly dressed.” 
446. “Natural or partly dressed.” 
45. “ Appears dressed.” 
On inspecting the series, I found No. 10 to approach nearest to 
the St. Acheul type, but even this flint is described as “ Natural, 
but perhaps chipped at the edge.” 
When a careful inspection of the “implements” by a pro- 
fessed geologist and antiquary leads to so much difficulty and 
doubt, how are we to distinguish between the false and the 
true, between the work of nature and the work of man ? 
Where are we to draw the boundary line between geological 
* “Antiquity of Man/’ p. 379. 
