ments, such as would be suggested to man in his primitive and barbarous state, either as destructive instruments for supplying himself with food by the chase, and for warfare or defence, or as useful implements for constructing habitations, or forming boats or rafts. Stone implements are found among all primitive nations throughout the world, whose maintenance chiefly depended on their energy and ingenuity while unacquainted with the harder metals. The men who adopted these stone implements were evidently a hunting people, and consequently in one of the earliest stages of the human race, as is shown by the partly devoured bones of the urus, the deer, the megaceros, the roe found in connexion with them. Their similarity is here, also, a striking feature. The stone axe of the South Sea islanders of the eighteenth century presents a close resemblance to that of British or Gaulish fabrication of the earliest centuries. The similarity of the weapons or instruments, flint, stone, or bronze, being always according to the stage of development of the race, or country in which they are found, and not always according to a period of time. Their presence is thus not always an evidence of high antiquity, but of an early and barbarous state; for stone hatchets are found in common use, at the present day, among the South Sea islanders. Some tribes of Indians have been recently met with by Mr. Chandless, near the sources of the Purûs river in Peru, still using their primitive stone hatchets. The remoteness of the stone period must, therefore, be inferred from the relative antiquity of the country in which they are found. Thus, the flint or stone implements found in India or Egypt will belong to a remoter period than those found in Denmark or Ireland; while the latter will be witnesses of an earlier age than those which are met with in New Zealand or Australia.

Stone implements are found in countries the most widely apart, and are not peculiar to any distinct race, but are naturally suggested to any race of men in a rude and imperfect stage of civilisation, and are peculiar to that stage alone. They are found in Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Asia, America, Africa, Japan, Teneriffe, New Zealand, Aus

tralia, the South Sea Islands,-all, whether modern or thousands of years old, presenting a marked uniformity. As Professor Worsaae remarks, "the weapons and instruments of stone which are found in the north of Europe, in Japan, in America, the South Sea Islands, and elsewhere, have, for the most part, such an extraordinary resemblance to one another in point of form, that one might almost suppose the whole of them to have been the production of the same maker. The reason of this is very obvious, namely, that their form is that which first and most naturally suggests itself to the human mind."

The distinctions, indeed, are so marked between the different stages of the stone period, that they may be divided into three, corresponding with the phases of civilisation visible in man. 1. The flint implements of the gravel-drift, evidently used by man in his lowest and most barbarous grade. 2. The flint implements found in Ireland and Denmark, which belonged to a people who lived by the chase. 3. Polished stone implements, which mark a more advanced stage, perhaps a pastoral age. The following terms may be used to distinguish them :Palæolithic, Mesolithic, Kainolithic.

The desire to attack his enemies from a greater distance, and to engage in the chase, has suggested also to man, in this early age, the use of the arrow. Hence, arrowheads of flint or stone are found in the same countries of a corresponding age, or period of civilisation. Their striking resemblance is also very remarkable. The arrowheads of flint found in America are scarcely distinguishable from those found in Ireland.

In the next age, the manufacture of bronze weapons may be considered as a further improvement on the fabrication of stone implements, consequent on the knowledge of the harder metals, the improvement corresponding with the grade attained to in civilisation. The adoption of metal, however, was neither sudden nor universal. The transition from the rude instruments of stone to those of bronze must have been very gradual, and possibly extended over many centuries. The bronze instruments and weapons peculiar to this epoch, found

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in Egypt, Denmark, Italy, England, France, Spain, Ireland, Africa, and America, also bear distinct analogies in form to one another, as Sir William Wilde observes, "Like its predecessors in stone, the metal celt had a very wide distribution, and has been found in every country in Europe, from the river Tiber to the Malar Lake, but differing slightly in shape and ornamentation from those found in the British isles." Like the stone implements, they are not peculiar to any race, but are suggested to any primitive nation, as a necessary result of an invariable sequence in its progressive development. We may add, adopting Professor Worsaae's words, "the antiquities belonging to the bronze period, which are found in the countries of Europe, can neither be attributed exclusively to the Celts, nor to the Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Sclavonians, nor to the Teutonic tribes. They do not belong exclusively to any people, but have been used by the most different nations at the same stage of civilisation." We must, however, remark, that however like in form these implements seem to common observers; still there are distinctive characteristics, however slight, of each race in each type of implement, easily distinguishable by the practised eye.

Further, besides remarking the obvious analogy of form in these bronze implements in different countries, it is also remarkable that nearly the same proportions (ten or twelve per cent. of tin) result from the analysis of the bronze weapons found in the sepulchral barrows of Europe, of the nails which fastened the plates with which the treasury of Atreus at Mycena was covered, of the instruments contained in the tombs of ancient Egypt, and of the tools of the Mexicans and Peruvians, the same powers of suggestion in man, operating alike in all countries, and leading him not only to the discovery and fabrication of like forms of weapons, but also the invention and use of similar materials.

The simplest form of bronze hatchet is a cuneiform, or wedge-shaped piece of metal, evidently modelled on the type of the large stone hatchet; at a later period it assumes a more ornamental form, or a shape better suited for being attached to the wooden handle with which it was used, as in the so

called "winged celts" or "palstaves" in Ireland and Denmark. The earlier form of hatchet was merely inserted in the handle, and sometimes tied to it. Palstaves-or those bronze instruments in which the side edges project into flanges so as to form grooves for the reception of the cleft handle are found in endless varieties of shapes in many countries, Denmark, Switzerland, France, England, Ireland, Etruria, Magna Græcia, each of these countries exhibiting evidences of a sequence of flint, stone, and bronze periods; thus confirming the inference that man's inventive and suggestive faculties, operating alike in each stage of his development and in all races of men, will lead him, independently and without connexion, to fashion and invent, under similar circumstances and according to that stage, almost similar weapons and implements to supply his wants and necessities, each style of implement being peculiar to, and belonging exclusively to, each separate period or phase of civilisation.

In a later age, when iron was known and generally adopted, the earlier forms of instruments were still retained for some time, until the rapid progress of civilisation and refinement caused them to be thrown aside. According to Sir William Wilde, "In the Copenhagen Museum may be seen celts and hatchets of iron, and of comparatively modern date; and in the central parts of Sweden, the short iron hoe or pick, used by the peasantry in grubbing up roots of trees, is not much larger than and greatly resembles some varieties of the ancient bronze celt." Iron, however, once known, advancement was more rapid. We need not speak further of the iron age, as it is not peculiar to early and primitive nations, but is evidence of an advanced and more perfect state of civilisation, and a progress towards the culminating period of man's develo

ment.

XXIII.-Report on Explorations into the Archaic Anthropology

of the Islands of Unst, Brassay, and the mainland of Zetland, undertaken for the Earl of Zetland and the Anthropological Society of London. By JAMES HUNT, Ph.D., F.S.A., F.A.S.L., Hon. For. Sec. of the Roy. Soc. of Literature of Great Britain, For. Assoc. of the Anthrop. Soc. of Paris, Hon. Fellow of the Ethnol. Soc. of London, Cor. Mem. of the Upper Hesse Soc. for Nat. and Med. Science, and of the Med. Assoc. at Hesse Darmstadt, Mem. of the Dresden Academy, and President of the Anthrop. Soc. of London.

In the first volume of Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London (p. 296), there appears a short notice, entitled "On the discovery of large Kistvaens in the Muckle Heog, in the Island of Unst (Shetland), containing Urns of Chloritic Schist," by George E. Roberts, Esq., F.G.S., F.A.S.L. This paper was made up from letters sent to Mr. Roberts by Thomas Edmonstone, Esq., of Buness, in the Island of Unst, to whose interest in the subject we are indebted for possessing these interesting relics. Mr. Edmonston sent all the urns and skulls found on the Muckle Heog to a local museum, which is being formed at Lerwick, the chief town in the Zetland Islands. A notice of these discoveries was inserted in the northern papers; and Mr. Roberts, then one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Anthropological Society, at once wrote to Mr. Edmonston, and asked for further particulars. This gentleman not only promptly complied with his request, but put all the objects which had been found at the entire disposal of Mr. Roberts.

Mr. Roberts, on reading his paper, exhibited the objects before this society, and suggested the desirability of further research. This proposal having met with approval, Mr. Roberts entered into a correspondence with the Earl of Zetland, K.G., on whose property was situated the hill called the Muckle Heog,