rial rather than to the mechanical ability of the one who did the fracturing. The angle of cleavage of a stone when artificially chipped or flaked varies considerably and must not be confounded with its cleavage, taken in the ordinary mineralogical sense. Flint, rhyolite, jasper, obsidian, and quartzite vary greatly in their fracture in the same ledge a few feet apart.

Much of the present theory of the existence of paleolithic man as now understood appears to depend on the proper solution of these views. If the "paleolith," as a tool, does not represent a specific mechanical status, then it represents nothing. The shape of this style of implement remained unchanged through eons of time, we are told, because man continued to imitate a most primitive shape of tool. Let us look into primitive conditions and see if we may substantiate this view or if we must abandon it as untenable.

Naturally man's condition will be influenced largely by his surroundings; climatic changes, differences of food-supply, the character of his neighbors, whether man or beast, and the supply of raw material to fill his wants-all would have their influence. Such differences, however, will be found not to have caused any variation in the simpler implements which, wherever found on the earth's surface, include knives with which to cut, hammers to bruise or break, abraders to smooth rough surfaces, clubs for defense, thongs with which to tie, piercers with which to make holes, pigments for coloring, vessels to hold things, and covering used as clothes or for ornament. The very marked similarity in all these objects on the different continents is reasonably conclusive that they were made and employed for similar purposes and because there was an insufficient natural supply. to satisfy the demand.

All research indicates indisputably that the most primitive peoples of whom we have any knowledge not only made use of the bountiful supplies of nature, but that they improved these natural supplies by shaping objects to suit their taste. From the very nature of things, primitive races could not have had any great variety of implements, for, having no knowledge of agriculture, they were restricted to the food supplies spontaneously furnished in the particular locality where they wandered. Fruits, nuts, mammals, birds, fishes-in fact, everything on which man feeds vary with the seasons. In localities where supplies

were constant, increase of population would necessitate migration, and where there were seasonal changes man would of necessity be a wanderer. As the fruits ripened in one place or in the other, as game came and went, as the products of the water were scarce or bountiful, as the water was warm or frozen, man would of necessity move from place to place.

A classification of implements demonstrates the wonderful alterations which have taken place in the mechanical skill of the human race since its most primitive stage. Implements have varied enormously, yet the most careful scrutiny suggests that the improvements do not follow those lines which many have hitherto supposed. Archeologists have thought to see in the different implements a gradual upward tendency from an extremely rude beginning, thus showing evolution in the tool itself, apparently ignoring the fact that tools have varied but slightly from their natural shape. As bronze and iron were respectively discovered, however, alterations would naturally suggest differences to those employing these metals.

The many names given to the supposed different periods of man's occupancy of the earth have been of a uniform growth, keeping pace approximately with new discoveries of man's dwellings, a few only of the more striking of which will be referred to.

Wilson in his Prehistoric Annals of Scotland first employed the word prehistoric. Goguet first offered evidence of a Copper age in 1758. It was Thomsen, the founder of the great Museum of Copenhagen, who divided the ages of man into those of stone, bronze, and iron, thus providing a basis of scientific chronology. After Boucher de Perthes made his now famous discoveries in the valley of the Somme of the bones of an extinct fauna associated with the implements of early man and lying side by side in what has been claimed to be undisturbed gravel, Sir John Lubbock suggested the term "neolithic " to distinguish the supposed polished stone from the "paleolithic " or chipped-stone period made known by the discoveries of M. de Perthes. Implements claimed by many to be similar to the flints of the European drift have been found in certain American localities, which are asserted by some of the best known American geologists to belong to the talus of certain streams rather than to undisturbed gravel. Lartet divides the prehistoric periods according to the frequency

of finding the bones of the fauna of the later Quaternary mammalia. The correctness of his chronological order of disappearance of animals has, however, been combatted by certain English geologists. Cartailhac divides the life history of primitive man into upper and lower Tertiary and upper and lower Quaternary and identifies these periods by supposed climatic differences as well as by the disappearance of the fauna, as suggested by Lartet. Mr J. Allen Brown suggests a new arrangement of primitive periods 1. Eolithic; the rough hewn pebbles of the Chalk plateau. II. Paleolithic; higher drift; oldest breccia. III. Mesolithic; between Paleolithic and Neolithic. IV. Neolithic; polished.

M. Gabriel de Mortillet classifies these periods into the same as Mr J. Allen Brown, omitting the Mesolithic, yet he subdivides the Eolithic into two periods and the Paleolithic into five, leaving the Neolithic alone and making four more recent periods to include the second Lacustrian.

To M. Adrien de Mortillet appears to be due the credit of first making a classification of prehistoric tools according to their purposes-I. Cutting tools; II. Rasping tools; III. Striking and crushing tools; IV. Perforating tools-all of which are subdivided according to whether they work by a blow, by friction, or by pressure, and are further subdivided by specialization, in which the scissors, shears, and drawing-knife are included under number 1, the rasp and file under number II, mills under number III, and gimlets and augers under class IV, which are hardly to be included under pure stone-age conditions. I would take exception also to the distinction between pressure and friction, and say that all primitive tools are made primarily by pressure or by blow until man learned to employ fire and heat and cold in tool-making.

This classification appears to have been adopted by Professor W. II. Holmes, but elaborated by subdividing according to the work performed by the respective tools. Professor McGee, in referring to Holmes' classification, suggests that in the shaping arts the fracturing process began with lowest savagery and culminated in highest savagery, declining through barbarism and civilization; that the battering process (class II) began toward middle savagery, culminated in barbarism, and then declined; the incising process (class III) began in savagery, increased slowly

through barbarism, and continued to the present; that the abrading process (class ?) began in middle savagery and feebly increased through the cultural stages. To these views of Messrs Holmes and McGee, Dr Brinton took exception as being a departure from European views. To this Professor McGee said the views were based on American phenomena, which were different from the European.

The writer must dissent from the views of Messrs McGee and Holmes as not being sustained by American phenomena and even less by that of Europe, for with scarcely an exception the arts have improved from the beginning. As to differing with European views, that should not signify in the slightest, one way or the other, and it is submitted that deferring to the views of a class or school can have no other effect than, as has occurred in America, the blind following of Europeans, there being no reason why Europeans should not err as well as Americans in determining primitive tool uses.

In many instances the supposed differences in the art of flintchipping has been the distinguishing feature of implements, by means of which the periods to which they belonged could be determined. The names of these periods have been so subdivided by European archeologists as to give rise to inextricable confusion in any effort to place them in chronologic order. One of the most distinguished of European scholars has suggested that all be called the Paleolithic, and until this suggestion is adopted the confusion will continue to increase.

That the fracture of stone implements is due entirely to the character of the stone worked may be demonstrated by any one who will, with an ordinary hammer, pass two or three days in fracturing different stones and in trying to fashion them into particular shapes. Only a few years ago European writers invariably spoke of the inferiority of American chipped implements, when compared with similar European specimens, as being evidence of the low stage of mechanical skill of the American Indian in precolumbian times, but when arrowheads from California, Oregon, and New Mexico were shown it was admitted that the western American was an expert in the use of the flaking tool, thus demonstrating that perfection of chipping or flaking depends absolutely on the homogeneity of the material worked.