30 
heir opinion as well as mine * The only evidence Mr. Evans has given that 
I have made a mistake on this point, is that there are implements found in 
Madras which are said to be quartzite. 
Mr. Evans. — I also mentioned one from Brandon that was made of felsile, 
or greenstone. 
Mr. Whitley. — I think it probable that it was of chert. There are a 
great many varieties of flint, and we should take care not to be misled on 
this subject by a particular variety of the mineral. Chert is a variety of 
flint, and when Mr. Evans refers to the quartzite of India, everybody 
knows that all the implements of the greensand are chert implements. 
There are upon the table some chert implements which I obtained from 
the greensand round Axminster, and there are some flakes by their side 
which have come from Pressigny-le-Grand, which will illustrate what I have 
stated. I have also to refer to another point, and that is with regard to the 
great number of these so-called implements. I have stated that these imple- 
ments are so great in number as to lead to the conclusion that they must 
have been produced by natural causes, and not by the hand of man. At St. 
Acheul I searched the gravel-beds, and it is a fact that, from tnree acres of 
land at that place, no fewer than 3,000 of these “ tools” have been exhumed, 
or an average of 1,000 axes per acre ! I ask, whether any one could expect 
to find in any river-bed, in any part of the world, as many as ten lost axes, 
even in the neighbourhood of a large town? (Hear.) Now, 1,000 lost 
axes per acre would give a total of 640,000 in a square mile, and as these 
beds are scattered throughout the valley of the Somme for twenty miles, you 
will find, on making a calculation, that the proportion of lost axes to the 
number of savages would be about six million to one ! (Hear, hear.) As I 
have come three hundred miles to attend this meeting, I should like to lay 
some of the main facts of the case before the audience I have the honour 
of addressing, trusting that in doing so you will kindly bear with 
my imperfections as a speaker. In carrying out the engineering works 
in which I have been engaged in North Devon, I walked to Croyde, an ex- 
posed cliff on the western shore, and there I found what are termed by some 
“ bundles of flakes,” and what others call “nests of flakes,” on the soil above the 
seashore. I stated this fact in a paper which Professor Huxley did me the 
honour of reading before the Geological Society, and I have been told that I made 
a great mistake, and that what I had seen was the site of a manufactory ! 
Several gentlemen have since been down and examined those flakes at Croyde, 
and they declare that there has been a manufactory there of Paleolithic 
* Mr. Evans says, “ The material from which all the implements hitherto 
discovered in the drift of this country and of the north of France have 
been formed, is the flint derived from the chalk.” (Archceologia, vol. xxxix. 
p. 64 (1865 ?).) Again— “that in the Paleolithic period — the material used 
in Europe was, moreover, as far as at present known, almost exclusively 
flint.” (Ancient Stone Implements, p. 49 (1872).) Sir John Lubbock says, 
of the drift implements, “All those hitherto discovered are made of flint.’ 
(Prehistoric Times, 1st ed., p. 279 (1865),) 
