4 
ticated animals. Nevertheless, because human bones have not 
hitherto been found in the undisturbed drift beds, there are those 
who deny that man existed during the drift period, in spite of the 
evidence afforded by the chipped and worked flint implements, “ as 
if man’s works were not as certain evidence of his existence as any 
portion of his frame.” That these implements are human worked 
has now been conceded by all who have paid any attention to the 
subject. Even the most rudely-formed implement affords traces of 
design in the direction of the chipping and in the choice of the 
material. Sometimes, even, a rounded flint pebble has been selected, 
one end of which has been preserved evidently for use in the hand 
whilst the other has been carefully chipped down to a working 
point. (See plate 2, fig. 2.) Such an implement could only have 
been designed by a reasoning being, and one is tempted to see in 
such an instance the result of a train of thought arising from the 
inconvenience experienced in using an implement rough in the 
hand which the maker sought to remedy in this way. Clearly, 
however, the implement was intended not simply as a tool, but as a 
tool to be used in the hand without inconvenience or injury to the 
user, although this hint was not improved upon as at a later eth¬ 
nological period, for in no instance does artificial rubbing occur 
during the drift period. 
The numerous highly-finished and symmetrically-chipped drift 
implements which exist, however, render argument on this point 
needless ; the human workmanship of many is self-evident, and in 
the present state of our knowledge it is perhaps safe to assume— 
1st. That certain chipped and flaked flints, found in drift de¬ 
posits, were so chipped and flaked by man’s hands, and are 
readily distinguished from the other flints in the same beds 
which have been fractured from natural causes. 
2nd. That these human-worked flints are found in undisturbed 
soil, exhibiting that rough stratification common to drift de¬ 
posits, and, therefore, that the beds afford evidence that the 
implements are contemporary with themselves. 
3rd. That these implements in themselves afford evidence of 
having been deposited contemporaneously with the other mate¬ 
rials of the drift beds in which they occur. When found in 
gravel they are water-worn like the other flints, or they are 
like them polished from the action of the sandy water, which 
flowed alike over rough flint and chipped implement lying 
side by side upon the old drift river bed ; but in all cases the 
implements bear the same external appearance and 'patina as 
do the naturally-fractured flints associated with them. Now 
as this patina extends over the whole surface of the imple¬ 
ments to their minutest chip, the implement, as now chipped 
into form, must have been so chipped when it was exposed to 
this process of natural polishing, together with the naturally- 
fractured flints which were then polished with it. From this 
