296 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
dwelt in the caverns of Devonshire; and the reindeer in the 
Dordogne, when an arctic climate prevailed in the South of France. 
To refute the views, however, of those who still hold that the Drift 
implements and the sub-surface flakes do not owe their forms to 
man's agency, but are the production of nature alone, the lecturer 
went at some length into the manufacture of flint implements, 
pointing out that flint in its natural position in the Chalk or Green- 
sand never presented the appearance of implements claimed as 
artificial ; and that even in the Drift the implements presented such 
closely allied types, and varied so little in general character, but 
differed so much from the angular pieces forming the bulk of the 
redeposited gravels, that they could be readily distinguished even 
by the uninitiated. Great stress was laid upon the " bulb of per- 
cussion," which the lecturer maintained was the result of an 
adjusted blow ; not necessarily the act of man, but when present 
on one side of a flake, and the other facets indicated that similar 
flakes had been struck off, then certainly the result of design, and 
consequently of man's hand. If so, then the " cores," so called, 
which exhibited signs of several flakes having been removed, were 
equally the work of human agency, and consequently the Palaeo- 
lithic implements, which to all intents and purposes were cores, 
although intended and fashioned to be utilized as weapons, &c, 
which showed that many flakes or pieces had been removed, were 
also man's works. Passing over the geological question, the 
lecturer briefly described the different implements both of the 
Pakeolithic and Neolithic periods, and drew attention to the vast 
quantities of articles of stone that had now been collected together 
in the museums both in Great Britain and abroad. The imple- 
ments from the caves of the South of France, Belgium, and 
Switzerland were referred to, and also the beautiful neolithic 
daggers and half-moon saws from the peat bogs of Denmark and 
Jutland, the lecturer pointing out the wonderful skill that had 
been exercised in their manufacture, and the accuracy with which 
they had been fashioned, as if the material had been rather ivory 
or bone, than the intractable and brittle flint. The stone clubs, 
hoes, and axes of modern savages, now becoming so scarce that 
they were treasured up as relics even by the savages themselves, 
were mentioned as being of the highest value, especially those that 
were hafted, as they exemplified the manner in which pro-historic 
man might have utilized the weapons he manufactured ; and atten- 
