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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
facts and arcliieological records? We are thus entering on 
a subject which is ripe for enquiry ; and when we consider 
that the presence of man in Europe in the Palwolithic age rests 
on the authenticity of the flint implements, and on these alone, 
the subject is invested with an importance which demands a 
most searching investigation. 
The evidence must be derived from the implements them- 
selves — from the position in which they are found — and the 
undoubted works of man with which they may be associated. 
On each of these topics the implements of the Neolithic age 
speak for themselves, and in language so clear and decisive 
that it cannot be misunderstood ; they are of a form and size 
adapted to the use for which they were designed, are mostly 
polished and ground to a cutting edge, and some bear decisive 
evidence of having been used. They are found associated with 
the undoubted wmrks of man, and cannot be inspected without 
producing the conviction of their human origin. 
The evidence of use, if not the most conclusive, is the most 
impressive. I found a celt of the ordinary form on the surface 
of the soil near Abbeville, the point of which had been rubbed 
into a peculiar shape by the friction of the purpose for which 
it had been used. On the top of the chalk cliffs, two miles 
west of lleachyllead, two days’ search produced four flint celts: 
the marks of designs on the whole were unmistakable, but one 
of superior workmanship had been broken by a blow from a 
finer pointed implement, the sharply formed dent on its surface, 
the bruised substance of the flint below, and the conchoidal 
fracture which severed it in two, attest the great force of the 
blow. I could not resist the conviction that it had probably 
been broken in battle; and I found two other broken celts 
near the same spot. 
It is important in its bearing on this enquiry to observe 
that the boundary line between the early and later ages of 
stone is sharply defined and easily recognised, and Sir John 
Lubbock says : “ It is not going too far to say that there is not 
a single well-authenticated instance of a ‘ celt’ being found in 
the drift, or an implement of the drift type being discovered 
either in a tumulus or associated with remains of the later 
stone age.” ** Tlicrc is, however, at least one apparent excep- 
tion. The flint flakes, the most perfect of which are assumed 
to be arrow-heads and flake knives, range through all parts of 
tlio stone ages both in archaeological time and geological posi- 
tion ; they are found in the gravel-beds of the Somme with the 
remains of the mammoth ; in the caves of the Dordogne with 
ilie Iiorns of the reindeer ; and in burial mounds with instru- 
ments of bronze and iron. The flakes appear to increase in 
• “ Treliistoric Times,” p. 280. 
