14 JANUARY 1905, Page 23

[Under this heading we notice such Books of the task

as haw 1106 been reserved for review in other forms.] An Outline of the History of Eolithic Flint Implements. By Benjamin Harrison, (The Author, Ightham, Kent. 6d.)—Mr. Harrison gives in this pamphlet a résumé of researches that have been continued for nearly half-a-century. The " eolith " is a relic of primeval man, man of a very remote geological age, much prior to his Palaeolithic and Neolithic successors. It is a very roughly shaped flint tool, often at first sight a stone modified by purely natural causes, but found, when more closely examined, to show human handiwork, because the modifications are not, such as accidental forces would have brought about. It is difficult to imagine the very beginnings of mechanical work, but help might be got from an experiment which Mr. Harrison suggests. He undertakes to arrange a series of worked flints, beginning with the moat elaborate neoliths and going back to the rudest eoliths, and to graduate them so that no ono could say : " Here the human handiwork ceases." The claims of extreme antiquity for the eoliths rest, it should be said, on the place where they are found, the Kentish plateau, now greatly denuded. It was here that Eolithic man lived. It is true that palaeoliths are often found in company with eoliths,—so may meat tins and stone bottles. But they are never found with them in situ. If a pit is opened in such a locality, eoliths only are to be discovered in it. The surface juxtaposition is a mere accident. We are aware that geologists are not unanimous in the matter; all, however, are agreed in admiring Mr. Harrison's single-minded devotion to his work.