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in the many mounds of oyster and other shells, bones, waste, refuse, &c., so often found, particularly near the coasts, and variously called "midden-heaps," "oyster-mounds," "refuse- heaps," &c., while the other shews acquaintance with metals and culture, and has its memorials in the stone-chambers and other grave-kists. He looks upon both these classes of monuments as equally belonging to the same stone age, only exhibiting different sides of the manners of the time.

In the grave-chambers, then, we have finished weapons and tools deposited with the dead man for his use in another life; and these stone pieces were doubtless usually his own, and the best among them. Only occasionally would ruder specimens be introduced, either the common unformed pieces used in fishing, or some few as amulets. But in the refuse-heaps we can only expect refuse, common things, especially the net-sinkers so largely employed and of such small value, together with rude chips and broken pieces. The great mass of the stone implements found in the refuse-heaps consists of this class-rude, half-formed, evidently not intended as weapons or tools.

Still, both in the latter and in the grave-kists, some of each kind are found. In the kists we sometimes discover the rude pieces which otherwise abound in the refuse-heaps, and in these latter we now and then meet with regularly cut and polished examples similar to those prevailing in the grave-chambers.

Professor Steenstrup therefore argues that his antagonist's view is a fallacy, grounded upon his giving the names of chisels, knives, axes, lances, &c., to things that were nothing of the kind, and were never intended to be. His argument here is very striking. He first points out the fact, acknowledged on all sides, that these aborigines lived by the chase and by fishing. This is abundantly proved by the fish-bones and oyster and other shells found in such immense quantities in the large heaps called refuse-mounds, which also contain thousands of remains of their flesh-meals in the shape of bones of the stag, the roe, and the wild boar, occasionally also the grey seal (Phoca grypus), the beaver, the bear, the lynx, and in some localities even the urus. And these creatures are not found only as young or half-grown specimens, more easy to kill than full grown, but in hundreds of cases the bones are so large and massive as to astonish those only familiar with the modern races. Now how were all these animals slain? Certainly not by nets and traps. This is utterly impossible. Some may have been, but the mass must have been hunted and chased. Here then we have the horns of the dilemma. Either they were caught in traps,—and then these "savages" needed no weapons, and therefore the multitudes of the stone pieces found in the refuse-mounds were not weapons,—or else they were hunted and felled; but then they must have been slain by something else than all these rough and imperfect stone pieces, for the

simple reason that these stones are not large enough, and good enough, and sharp enough to kill any such animals. Weapons there must have been, of course; but people do not usually cast their costly and necessary arms and tools into the dust-hole. Nor were the 66 savages" guilty of any such folly, therefore we do not find them there; but we do find them in their graves, piously deposited for the use of their departed friends and kinsmen.

arms.

And this brings him to another fact. These bones are variously split, carved, and broken, and this so as best to extract the marrow. Some of them and of the stag-horns have been fashioned into implements and Now how was this done? By stone tools able to do it. But this could not be done by the rude, shapeless, simple nubs and splints so largely found in the ash-heaps. This is proved beyond a doubt. The cutting marks have been tested by the microscope, and could not be produced by these imperfect stone fragments. And such men as Steenstrup, and Herbst, and Morlot, and Lartet have spent days trying their skill on bones given them for the purpose, endeavouring to cut and fashion them with these rude pieces in the same way as the old bones were cut and fashioned, but all to no purpose: the thing was impossible.

The mistake, then, is patent. These rough pieces were not unsuccessful or rude chisels, knives, and axes; they were something quite different; and must not be confounded with the regular ground and polished pieces, which are always exceptions, and belong to certain kinds only, even in the stone-chambers themselves.

But even were all this proved to be an imperfect answer, Professor Steenstrup has another reply to fall back upon. He says, these refuseheap men threw no good and sharp flint knives and weapons away (the very few found having been accidentally dropped), but they did throw away the hundreds and thousands of common pieces we now find in the litter-mounds. But the manufacture of these pieces was as difficult as that of the finished pieces, it was only a difference of degree. They all depend on the lost art, if it be lost, called flint-slicing. This art they possessed in a high degree, perhaps in its highest degree. As a proof of this, he mentions the many examples found of the flint-kernel or flint-block, variously sliced, and the very fine flint-slips or shaves dexterously split therefrom. The men who could do this could do anything. We may gain some idea of the difficulty by remembering that when flint fire-arms were in fashion, before the percussion-lock came in, and when all "civilized" states spent millions in manufacturing gun-flints for their armies, it was never fully accomplished, and only a few chosen hands approached anything like perfection even in this very inferior kind of flint-slip. But this highest skill was possessed by the oyster-bank men. Therefore they could execute the finer works found in the grave-kists.

Professor Steenstrup also remarks that we should be very careful before we generalize. If we find a broken and coarse comb in a refuseheap, we must not straightway assume that its maker was a "barbarian" and could do nothing better:

"The same general comb-form," he observes, "is found in all common coarse combs, and in the horse's mane-comb, and in the simple heckle for hemp and bast with its one row of large teeth, and the berry-plucker of the Laps, and the eelspear of the fishers. All these are even nearly of the same size. But how different will be their form, and how various the amount of skill and finish bestowed upon them, independent of their material, according to the purpose for which they are intended!"-(p. 12.)

He naturally enough applies this reasoning to the other objects mentioned, the lancets, knives, wedges, and the rest, and with the same convincing result. He also reminds us that the use of bone is as old as that of stone, and that both are equally difficult to fashion,-in one word, that the presence or absence of bone tools is no proof of transition, of which he finds no absolute proofs or traces in the stone age. This absence of transition is also evident from the general character of the refuse-heaps. Wherever found, their contents are more or less the same. In one land the natives may have had more domestic animals, in another fewer, but otherwise their condition was nearly the same. And this leads him to discuss the assertion that the refuse-heap men in Denmark had only the dog as a tame house-beast, whereas the grave-kist men had also the horse and the cow. This he entirely disbelieves. He has never found distinct proofs of the existence of these last as home-animals in the stone chambers hitherto opened in Denmark.

But if all these chisels and knives, and hammers and wedges on which Professor Worsaae lays so much stress were nothing of the kind, and were not intended to be, what were they?

Professor Steenstrup answers, they were probably most of them fishermen's nubs, roughly hewn sinkers for fishing-hooks and fishingnets, such as are frequently used at this very day; one net has often hundreds of these stones: and of course this explains their being so often found on old beaches. To prove this he gives admirable engravings of the sinking-stones still used by the Laps, shewing the way in which the rough form is amended by their being wrapped in skin or leather or bark, bound with sinew, &c. He also explains how this produces the peculiar rispings and furrows which so often distinguish these rude stone remains. This argument is elaborated with great care, and the beautiful engravings, from specimens in the Ethnographical Museum in Cheapinghaven, enable us to understand his meaning at every step. Besides these engravings many others occur, and he has also repeated those given by Professor Worsaae, in order to avoid mistakes.

Even supposing that there should be two civilizations, Professor Steenstrup still denies that the one was therefore absolutely and necessarily older than the other, and reminds us of the contemporaneous and most unequal development of the Laps on the one hand, and the Norwegians on the other; of the Hill-Laps on the one hand, and the Sea-Laps on the other; and in the south of Europe, of the cultivated tribes on the one hand, and the wild Chauci, who had no tame animal at all, on the other.

It is evident that this great question is not yet absolutely decided. Fresh examinations of the refuse-heaps and of the grave-chambers must be made, and various particular points must be investigated, before we can come to any absolute conclusion. But so far the scales incline in Professor Steenstrup's favour. At all events, we learn much from his pages, and hope that he will carry into effect his promise at page 69, to discuss at an early opportunity the flint-pieces found in the so-called "diluvial drift,” and the various theories which have been founded thereupon. His opinion on this subject will be received with profound respect and attention :

"When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war."

All parties will learn by a discussion which is in such able and friendly hands, and all will equally agree in Professor Steenstrup's last sentence:

"As my excuse, if any should be necessary, for all the trouble which the Naturalist thus causes the Archæologists, I will only adduce the observation of our late and famous Secretary,-'In the nineteenth century, more than ever before, all science is one.'”

TUMULUS AT NYMPSFIELD. A chambered tumulus, which had been discovered a short time before in a partially-ploughed field at Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, was opened in August last, under the superintendence of some members of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Club. The longitudinal area of the sepulchre was defined by eight massive unwrought slabs of oolite, laid in pairs, and varying from three to four feet in width. The entrance was at the east end. It soon became obvious, from the disturbed state of the interior, that the barrow had been broken into and plundered at some former period. A great number of bones of both sexes were strewn around, indicating that the tumulus was the burying vault of some family or tribe, and not, as was at first suspected, the sepulchre of heroes. Altogether thirty-four femora were discovered, together with a skull, twenty-two inches in circumference, some jaw-bones, several of which evidently belonged to children, a piece of halfburnt pottery, some flint flakes, a boar's tusk, some pigs' bones and incisor teeth. The whole of these objects were removed, and have been deposited, pro tempore, in the museum of the Agricultural College at Cirencester, where they are open to inspection.

THE ANTIQUITIES IN THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY".

THE Irish antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy have long been looked upon as one of the purest national collections in Europe. It has been judiciously gathered from home sources, and probably is not exceeded by any public museum in specimens of native ancient art, authenticated as such, and unmixed with that foreign alloy which so much depreciates, in the eye of the scientific enquirer, the value of many public and private collections-that is to say, those in which the native and foreign remains are not properly discriminated and kept apart from each other.

The extent and interest, however, of this Museum have rather been generally admitted than fully understood and appreciated; and the reasons are obvious. The time expended in crossing the Irish Channel would now place the traveller in the heart of more classical countries; and the antiquities themselves, little aided, if at all, by ancient literature, do not offer such attractions to the classic student as the antiquities of Greece and Rome, or as those of Roman and Saxon Britain. These are reasons for the fact of the comparative neglect of the study of the remains of ancient Ireland, not an argument in its defence. But perhaps the most serious cause was the want of a good printed illustrated catalogue. Without such a medium of introduction the best collections are almost sealed to the public. Admitting every article to be labelled, how can the visitor retain all he sees in his memory? But supposing the contents of a large museum are only imperfectly classified, with no explanations, to what possible useful purpose can they be applied? And yet how very seldom can a descriptive catalogue be found in museums either in England or upon the Continent!

The Royal Irish Academy has liberally and in the most enlightened spirit supplied this want with respect to its Museum; and, fortunately, the grant of money has been followed by individual capacity and generosity. In Mr. Wilde the Academy has found what money could not ensure a mind equal to the peculiar intellectual requirements, and a hand to cope with the drudgery, of the task; and this elaborate and well-arranged Catalogue is the result. As there would have been obvious objections to any attempt to classify upon a chronological basis, Mr. Wilde has arranged the main primary division, in reference to

"A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. By W. R. Wilde, M.R.I.A." (In Three Parts. 8vo., 1857-1862. Dublin and London.)

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