40 
implements, which had been manufactured by workmen, and had had a good 
colour given to their surface by being buried in the dark ferruginous sand, 
were found to be quite clean, new, and sharp ; but the genuine implements 
were penetrated with iron infiltration, and their edges showed distinct marks 
of having been used. No one has mentioned to-night what struck me as one 
of the most curious specimens in M. Boucher de Perthes’ museum. One of 
the flint implements presented the rough Palaeolithic form on one side, 
having been blocked out by blows ; while not only was the other side 
polished, but there was by the side of it the very stone on which it had 
been polished, as could be proved by the perfect fitting of the one to the 
other. Those two stones were found very near together in the gravel- 
beds of the Somme valley. There is only one point further that I should 
like to advert to. As I have said before, scientific men have been 
charged with a desire to go against the received beliefs on these subjects. 
from the fact that the Celtic stone weapons have been found in the superficial 
soil above the Drift containing these rude weapons, as well as from other con- 
siderations, must have inhabited this region of the globe at a period anterior 
to its so-called Celtic occupation.’ „ _ . , , 
“ The objects found are here admitted to differ from the implements of the 
primitive Celts, and they differ in like manner from those of the American 
Indians, which are almost if not quite undistinguishable from those of ancient 
Europe and Asia. One at least of the kinds mentioned has scarcely a 
semblance of artificial form, and the others are all merely fractured, not 
o-round or polished. In so far as one can judge, without actually inspecting 
the specimens, these appear to be fatal defects in their claim to be weapons. 
The observers have evidently not taken into consideration the effects of 
intense frost in splitting flinty and jaspery stones. It is easy to find, among 
the debris of the jasper veins of Nova Scotia, for instance, abundance of 
ready-made arrow-heads and other weapons; and there is every reason to 
believe that the Indians, and perhaps the aboriginal Celts also, sought for 
and found those naturally split stones which gave them the least trouble in 
the manufacture, just as they selected beach pebbles of suitable forms for 
anchors, pestles and hammers, and hard slates with oblique joints for knives. 
To these natural forms, however, the savage usually adds a little polishing, 
notching, or other adaptation ; and this seems to be wanting in the greater 
part of the specimens from Abbeville. 
“ 2. Nothing is more difficult, especially in an uneven country, than to 
ascertain the extent to which old gravels have been re-arranged by earth- 
quake waves or land floods. Nor does the occurence in them of bones of 
extinct animals prove anything, since these are shifted with the gravel. Very 
careful and detailed observations of the locality would be required to attain 
any certainty on this point. . . J . . , , , 
“ 3. The places in which gravel-pits are dug, are often just those to which the 
aborigines are likely to have resorted for their supply of flint weapons. They 
may have burrowed in the gravel for that purpose, and their pits may have 
been subsequently filled up. Further, savages generally make their imple- 
ments as near as possible to the places where they procure the raw material ; 
and in making flint weapons, where the material abounds, they reject with- 
out scruple all except those that are most easily worked into form. If of 
human origin at all, the so-called weapons of Abbeville are more like such 
rejectamenta than perfected implements. This would also account for the 
