The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain

FOR some years past it has been felt by students of anthropology that the limits of their science were being pushed so far in every direction by various enthusiastic workers in almost every country of the inhabited world, that it was high time for some competent hand to gather together the facts which lay scattered broadcast in the publications of learned societies and private students, so that they might be available for general use in a collected form. It seems that this idea also filled the mind of one, at least, of our veteran teachers, and the result of its existence is the second edition of Sir John Evans' famous work on the “Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain.” It is now some twenty-five years since the first edition of this valuable book saw the light, and the accuracy and plain statement of facts, which were its chief characteristics, secured for it at once a place of high authority. In those early days of the history of British stone-lore scientific collectors of facts were few, and men like the late Sir Wollaston Franks, the Rev. William Greenwell, and Mr. J. Anderson of Edinburgh, who attempted to arrange their specimens with a proper regard to hard facts, were looked upon with suspicion by a large mass of collectors and “antiquaries” whose chief interest in antiquities lay not in the objects themselves, but in the wonderful stories which they could tell about them. A visit to certain local museums not many scores of miles from London will to this day show what measure of learning was possessed by those who labelled and arranged them about thirty years ago, and we make bold to say that general ignorance and specific blunders in such matters can only be cleared away by the publication of good works, such as that before us, written in plain language and published at a reasonable price.The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain.By Sir John Evans Second edition. Pp. xviii + 747. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897.)