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still in its matrix. The fact that in these cases the forms are so similar 
ought, I think, to lead us to doubt whether we should say unhesitatingly, 
when we see these specimens, that they are human work. In this, a third 
photograph, Professor Hughes takes No. 1 to be an unquestionable 
implement, No. 2 he rejects, and he is doubtful about No. 3. I think 
that they are too much alike for any one to be able to speak very 
positively as to one being an implement and the other merely a fractured 
flint. Then there are other little difficulties that will arise, and which 
we are bound to look at. The writer of this paper has said, “ We may 
raise the question whether the findings are genuine or forgeries.” I have 
brought a forgery, if that be the proper term for it. This [producing 
it] was not made by palseolithic man. It came from the Somme Valley, and I 
do not think it is ten years old. It was made by one of the workmen, and 
will not aid us at all in solving the question of the antiquity of man. The 
man from whom I obtained it did not try to impose on me ; he said that it 
was made by one of his fellow- workmen. I asked, “ How did he make it ? ” 
and the man replied, “ He used an iron punch and a hammer.” I said to him, 
“But, you know palaeolithic man had neither iron punch nor hammer.” 
“ No,” said the man ; “ I suppose he had not.” “ Then how,” said I, a do 
you suppose palaeolithic man made his implements?” “ Well,” replied the 
man, “ he must have cut them out with a stone.” I asked him to show me 
how, and he at once got a stone, with which he struck off three or four chips 
on this side and three or four on that, and after this had been done, it 
certainly did look a little more like human workmanship than it had done 
before. When he had done this, the stone went back into the basket 
among the other implements, and if any one had gone there a fortnight 
afterwards, he might have picked up that very flint and said, “ It really does 
look as if there had been some human workmanship here,” and he would 
have been right ; but it was not the work of palaeolithic man. We have 
had a great many of the forgeries of the notorious “ Flint Jack ” ; in the 
Salisbury Museum there are a number of them ; I do not mean to say 
that all that have the appearance of being artificial are forgeries : all I want 
to impress upon the meeting is that a considerable amount of caution is 
required in dealing with these specimens, — it must be borne in mind that 
geologists have rarely found them in situ. I have only taken two or three 
from the gravels, the rest I have received from workmen ; and if a work- 
man perceives the importance of one of these things being a little sharper 
than it is when he finds it, and knocks a little off the edge and puts it 
back again into the basket as in the case I have referred to, the person 
who comes afterwards must be careful he is not guided simply by the form 
of the flint, and its chipping. We must also bear in mind that there is no 
collateral evidence going with those flints, as is the case with the imple- 
ments found in the Swiss Lake dwellings, where wheat has been found, with 
them, and many other things are brought from the lake to strengthen the 
supposition that these implements were the work of man. There is nothing 
of this kind found associated with the Somme flints. I would advise caution* 
