many made of quartzite in the lateritic deposits of India; while in Southern Africa almost similar types occur, though their age somewhat uncertain.
That the cradle of the human family must have been situated in some part of the world where the climate was genial, and the means of subsistence readily obtained, seems almost self-evident; and that these discoveries in Somaliland may serve to elucidate the course by which human civilization, such as it was, if not indeed the human race, proceeded westward from its early home in the East is a fair subject for speculation. But, under any circumstances, this discovery aids in bridging over the interval] between Palæolithic man in Britain and in India, and adds another link to the chain of evidence by which the original cradle of the human family may eventually be identified, and tends to prove the unity of race between the inhabitants of Asia, Africa, and Europe, in Palæolithic times.
With regard to the reputed discoveries of palæolithic implements at Trenton,[1] New Jersey, and elsewhere in the United States of America, I venture to reserve my judgment. Opinion in America[2] is divided, one antiquary recording that in a quarry, the antiquity of which does not exceed two hundred years, and from which the Indians obtained chert from which they chipped out their implements, forms which exactly resemble the "turtle-backs" of Trenton occur; while other writers carry back the beds and the implements they contain so far as to Glacial times. Recent excavations seem to give evidence of, at all events, a high antiquity.
To return to the purposes of the implements themselves. With regard to their general uses, many opinions have been expressed. Sir Joseph Prestwich[3] has suggested that some of them may have been used as ice-chisels, for cutting holes in ice, to obtain water and to be enabled to fish during continued frosts, as is practised by many occupants of northern regions at the present day. Such a use is of course possible; but the occurrence of implements of similar forms in Madras, Somaliland, Northern and Southern Africa, seems to militate against this view, unless we are to suppose that at some remote time a glacial climate may have prevailed in those parts of the world also, as we believe it to have done here.
- ↑ C. C. Abbott, "Primitive Industry," 1881; Report, 1877, 1878. Proc. U. 8. Nat. Hist. Mus., 1888, Appendix; 1890, pp. 187, 371. Proc. Bost. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. xxi. pp. 124, 132. T. Wilson, "La Période paléol. dans l'Amér. du Nord.," Paris, 1892.
- ↑ W. H. Holmes, Smithsonian Inst. Rep., 1894. Nature, vol. xlviii., 1893, p. 253; vol. lv. 1897, p. 469 v.; Mercer's "Res. upon the Ant. of Man in the Delaware Valley," 1897.
- ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 42.
