Haynes.] 
134 
[January 19, 
being applied I regard these Delaware objects as being equally 
well adapted. The same general description applies to both 
classes of implements alike. The characteristic European pal- 
aeolithic implement is commonly known to archaeologists there 
by the name of the “ axe of the type of St. Acheul.” This des- 
ignation is derived from the old Abbey of this name, close to 
Amiens, in the valley of the Somme, in Northern France, where 
they were first discovered by Boucher de Perthes in 1841, and 
where they have since been found in greater numbers than in 
any other locality. This “ axe of the type of St. Acheul ” may 
be described as being usually of large size, longer than it is wide, 
thick in the middle and sharpened at the edges. One end is 
more or less pointed, and the other, which was doubtless intended 
to be held in the hand, is thick and rounded. Their most distin- 
guishing characteristic is that both sides, or faces, are chipped into 
a shape more or less convex and symmetrical. An implement of 
this description, it will be seen at a glance, is entirely unlike the 
ordinary Indian axe, or tomahawk, made of polished stone, and 
very generally provided with a groove around the middle, intend- 
ed to hold a handle made of twisted wythes. Accompanying these 
St. Acheul axes there are also found in Europe smaller objects, 
such as spear-heads, and knives fashioned out of flakes detached 
from blocks of flint. All such flakes bear a peculiar mark, called 
the “bulb of percussion,” which proves them to be of man’s 
fabrication, as it is never found upon chance-broken splinters 
of flint. It indicates the spot where an intentionally directed 
blow was struck upon the nucleus from which the flake was 
detached. Similar flakes of argillite are also found in New 
Jersey accompanying the larger objects made from that material, 
which proves that such implements were manufactured on or near 
the spot where the flakes occur ; but the number of such flakes 
that has hitherto been found is quite limited. 
It would be incorrect, however, to suppose that the European 
archaeologists discriminate between the palaeolithic implements 
(the oldest objects of human workmanship thus far discovered, and 
which all present the type that I have described) and those that 
belong to the later neolithic period, or the age of “Polished 
Stone” (to which is to be referred the common Indian axe or 
