seeds sprouted around them, and they learned to plant them; they noticed the effect of heat upon metals, and tried to mix them; wild animals wandered around them, and they learned to reduce them to slavery. Every bit of knowledge won, and every progress made, became the starting-point for fresh acquisitions, fresh advances, which thenceforth remained forever the common heritage of the human race. It was thus that experience early taught our remote ancestors that rock chips more easily under the blows of a hammer when fresh from the quarry; and everywhere men learnt to choose the stone best suited to their purpose. For hatchets, wedges, and hammers, they used jade and kindred substances, such as fibrolite, diorite, and basalt, which were at the same time extremely durable, and very impervious to blows. For spear- and arrow-heads, knives, saws, and all instruments requiring sharp points and cutting edges, they employed quartz, jaspar, agate, and obsidian, according to the situation of the worker; all these materials, though extremely hard, being easily split into thin sharp flakes. The blocks of stone were very methodically cut up; they were, in fact, to use a very appropriate expression of M. Dupont’s, scaled (_écaillês_). We give drawings of a few of these implements (Figs. 18, 19, and 20), which illustrate the earliest efforts of lean, efforts which may be looked upon as the starting-point of all those industries which in the course of centuries have developed results which it is impossible to contemplate without astonishment. [Illustration: 18.] Scraper from the Delaware Valley. [Illustration: 19.] Implement from the Delaware Valley. The host ancient tools which have come down to us were clumsy and heavy, cut on both sides and pointed (Fig. 20). They may vary in material, in size, and in finish, but they can always be easily recognized.2 Were they man’s only weapons? We hesitate to believe it, and the careful researches of M. d’Acy add to our incredulity.3 He tells us that at Saint-Acheul, which was the very cradle of these strange discoveries, the almond shape is found mixed with the pointed amongst the Moustier flints, so that what is true in one place is not in another, and any general conclusion would certainly be premature. [Illustration: 20.] Worked flints from the Lafaye and Plantade shelters (Tarn-et-Garonne).