140 Prinmval Man in the Valley of the Lea. 
last year—what a tale the deep glacial scratches tell on the 
original crust. One implement seems to say that its maker 
had light and skilful fingers, and a true eye for a beautiful 
and correct form. One example seems always to say that it 
was made by an old man who had made many hundreds of 
such tools before : the perfection of the manufacture and 
the dexterity of the flaking prove it. Another seems to say 
that it was made by a raw beginner, and confesses itself by its 
form to be a failure, an abortion, and a waster, angrily thrown 
away as worthless. One big acutely-pointed tool seems to say 
that it was made specially to attack a Mammoth, a Rhino¬ 
ceros, a Lion, a Horse, or a Man. Another confesses by its 
shape to being a domestic tool, made by primaeval hands to 
scrape the flesh from the bones of a Horse, or to prepare a skin 
for a rude cloak. One says it was used for splitting wood, 
another for felling a beast; some say they were made for neat 
work, others for coarse ; some for hunting, others for peaceful 
purposes at home. One tells how it lost its acute point 
in a desperate contest, or by a provoking accident; another 
how it lost its edge by long hacking at tough green wood; 
another tells how its butt-end had been battered by constant 
hammering: all shadow forth something to the thinking 
observer. 
Although it is easy to suggest the probable uses to which 
many of the implements were put, yet there remain some 
forms which defy all explanation; our knowledge at present 
is so imperfect of the men who made the tools and the 
mode of life of those men that a ready explanation is hardly 
to he expected of every object found in association with the 
ordinary well-defined implements. 
Although there is considerable variety of form in Palaeo¬ 
lithic implements, and although several new forms have been 
detected during the last ten years, it is very remarkable 
that Palaeolithic men did not vary their tools more than 
they did. When the pointed tongue-shaped weapon was 
invented, and then the oval or ovate tool with a cutting edge 
all round or with an unworked butt, the men as a rule 
were unable to proceed beyond the scraper to other forms; 
