52 
THE PRINCIPAL FLOOR. 
to the occurrence of flint “ hatchets ” at considerable depths ia 
the sands and gravels of the valley of the Somme. Some of 
these worked flints from Abbeville and Amiens are exhibited, 
with other flint implements from widely separated localities. 
Several fine palceolithic # implements from the high-level 
gravels between Herne Bay and the Reculvers, on the coast of 
Kent, found by Mr. Thomas Leech in 1860, are of special 
interest, inasmuch as they were the first implements found in 
this country after Boucher de Perthes’ discoveries had called 
attention to the subject. Here also are some paleolithic imple- 
ments found in gravel, while digging, in 1894, for the foundation 
of a building at the corner of Jermyn Street and Eagle Passage. 
A flint implement, occurring in brick earth, from near Brandon 
in Suffolk, said by Mr. Skertchly to pass under the chalky 
boulder-clay, is worthy of special attention, since, if the 
observation be correct and the beds were undisturbed, the 
implements might be assigned to an inter-glacial age. 
The rudely chipped flints, occurring in the drift-gravels, are 
to be distinguished from the more highly finished celts, which, in 
most cases, bear evidence of having been carefully ground and 
polished : such stone weapons, by no means always of flint, are 
much more recent than the worked flints from the drift, being 
referable to that prehistoric era, known to archaeologists as the 
neolithic ,t or newer stone age. 
For comparison with these ancient implements, and to explain 
their probable use, there are exhibited, in the opposite compart- 
ment of the Case, several examples of the rude stone implements 
used by certain savage tribes at the present day. A few flint 
arrow-heads, prepared to deceive collectors, are also placed by 
the side of the genuine relics. 
Slab from a French Bone-Cavern. — Presented by the late 
M. Lartet and H. Christy . No. 24. 
This slab of osseous breccia was obtained, by the donors, from 
the floor of the bone-cave of Les Eyzies, in the valley of the Beune, 
a tributary to the Vezere, in Dordogne. The bones are chiefly 
those of the reindeer, and are in most cases fractured, having 
probably been broken for the extraction of the marrow. These 
bones are associated with great numbers of worked flints, rolled 
pebbles, and fragments of foreign rocks, the whole being cemented 
together by stalagmitic carbonate of lime. The most interesting 
relics of human workmanship in these deposits are rudely- 
engraved pieces of bone and plates of schistose rock, which are 
among the earliest known specimens of the engraver’s art. In 
the block before us there has been found a small bone needle, 
and a human tooth was detected in a similar slab sent to Vienna. 
The bone deposits of Dordogne are referable to a remote era* 
when the use of metal was apparently unknown, — an era some- 
Greek, palaios, old ; lithos, stone. 
t Neos, new ; lithos, stone. 
