43 
because there is little doubt that, if they can make the flints look a little more 
valuable by any process, there is a direet temptation to them to do so. I do not 
quite make out whether the next paragraph means to state that the flints now 
on the table were among the implements to which Mr. Smith referred as being 
palseolithic, or whether it is only meant that they are similar; because the 
author of the paper says that Mr. Smith exhibited a series of sixty ‘palaeolithic 
implements,’’’ and then, having quoted a remark of the President of the 
Anthropological Institute, he goes on to say, — ‘“I have obtained several 
of these ‘implements,’ which I now exhibit.” Does he mean that Mr. Smith 
and Mr. Tylor have spoken of those flints on the table as being “ palaeolithic 
implements ”? Then, with regard to what is said on page 40, I have never 
had the opportunity of seeing any of those results of human industry which 
have come from the Lake dwellings in Switzerland, except the few that 
are in the British Museum and in the Christy Museum. It has not 
struck me, in looking at those specimens, that they do exhibit any great 
indications of manipulative skill or intellectual thought. They seem to 
me the rudest things, on which no great amount of skill has been exerted. 
I do not mean to say they do not indicate the labour of human hands ; on the 
contrary, I think they do ; but I have not been struck with their displaying 
any great amount of thought or of manipulative dexterity. In another paragraph 
on the same page, there seems to me to be very much like an over-statement of 
the case in asking any such Society as this to suppose that persons in positions 
of reputation, and who are supposed to be possessed of some ability, could 
possibly take for “palseolithic implements” things that have been found over 
a large area at the rate of 2,000 to the mile. You may easily get out of a 
great number of specimens one or two as to which yon may entertain doubt; 
but to take flints discovered at the rate of 2,000 to the mile, and to treat it 
as doubtful whether all are to be regarded as “ palseolithic tools,” seems to 
me to be reducing those who think that some are palseolithic and some are 
doubtful implements, to a position of absurdity, which can only be regarded 
as an over-statement of the case. Fancy 400,000 palseolithic tools in a dis- 
tance of 200 miles ! Does any one in the world suppose that all flints so found 
could possibly have been palseolithic implements ? I cannot believe it. I 
should like Mr. Whitley, who has read this paper to us, to say what he 
or his father thinks about the antiquity of the specimens we have all 
seen at the British Museum and in the Christy Museum, — what he 
thinks of those carvings done on bone, and the other specimens. Does he 
think they are all fraudulent ? And, if not, does he doubt their being 
human work ? It has always seemed to me, in looking at those specimens, 
that there is one thing about which there is great doubt. You there see a 
large number of chisels or axes. Those things have been picked up, as the 
labels tell us, by some one, here or there. How do they know this ? Of 
course you may give credit to the curators of museums for not being inclined 
to take part in a fraud ; but what is the evidence ? Take those drawings on 
bone that are found in the Christy Museum. Where is the evidence as to 
their having been found as stated? They have been accepted by a number 
