4U2 PROCEEDINGS AT MEETINGS OF

reniaikaltle that ' tuiigue-shaped ' * rala'olithic impleiucnts occur only in the valley -gravels. " I believe also that implements of this type are found chiefly, if not only, iu what are considered to be the older valley-gravels. On the other hand, *scrapei-s' closely resembling, if nut identical in type with, those of the Neolithic Period occur in profusion in cave-ileposits of PaUeo- litljic age, and are met with, although very sparingly, in the valley-gravels. We are, ]>erhaps, scarcely in a jiosition to say that arclueologists have

• found no tools or implements of intermediate forms that might indicate

a gradual improvement and progress from the rude Pala-nlithic types to the polished and elegant implements used by Neolithic man,' or that ' the one set of tools is sharply marked oti" from the other.'*

• ' We are in the habit of pleading the imi)erfectiou of the geological

record, but had all the stone implements used by man reached our time, we could from them have formed but a most inadetpiate notion of the various implements and weai)iins in use by him during the Palaeo- lithic and Neolithic Periods. 'Pake, for exami)le, a trophy of weapons from Australia, and how inconsiderably would they be represented by the rudely-shaped hatchets and the few flakes used for edging the spears. AVhat do they tell us of the boomerangs, the shields, the clubs, the throw- ing-bticks ? Among the most zealous promoters of the ' devclopment- theoiy ' is Colonel Lane Fox, and few men possess anything ajtproaching to his knowledge of the varying forms of imjjlements and weapons iu use by modern savages, as well as of tln»se which were in use by pre- historic races of men. If we take a suflicicntly representative collection of implements and weapons in use by the aborigines of Australia, we shall tiud tiiat it is j)Ossible to trace back, by imperceptible grad;itions, the most complex and artificial form of boomerang, club, or shield, to a atmight stick. "This in the individual case is doubtless the result of direct develop- ment ; and I believe that each tribe, when unmolested, has for the most part worked out for itself its own discoveries and inventions, autl that comparatively few have been received by transmission from others. I say ' when unmolested,' because savagery loses confidence in itself in the presence of a higher civilization, and the savage becomes more or less depeiirlent upon the arts of the higher and more favoured race. "The liev. K. H. Codringtou, of tiie Melanesian mission, informs mo that the art of making sails according to the native method is possessed in a certain island >y but a single individual, and will perish witii him ; whilst, iu another island, the metiiod of making lisii-hooks of tiie native pattern is already wholly lost. Mr. Codringtou also adds tiiat, so recently as in 1><G3, shell was the only substance used in tlu' island of .Mota for cutting-instruments ; but that, in IMG'J, iron instruments ((ddiiined by barter) had come into such general use there that the nalive-niado shell instruments were only to be olitained with dilliculty. We have, there- fore, in the case of Mota a distinct relrogreKsitm in the industrial arts ; the islanders are more helpless, ntoro dependent upon Kuropoan civiliza- tion, now than they were ten years since. " But to return to the fpiestion of development >>f fi.rni, and of general

• ^'vaD«, "Ancicat Slonc Iiijplotmntji," * (Soikio, "Anli«|iiily of Mini," in

!>. 504. " Ucol. .M«g," Ai.nl, IbT:!, i>. 17(J.