something about eoliths; though the subject is one that invariably
sets pre-historians at each other's throats. There are eoliths and
eoliths, however; and some of M. Rutot's Belgian examples are
now-a-days almost reckoned respectable. Let us, nevertheless, inquire
whether eoliths are not to be found nearer home. I can wish the reader
no more delightful experience than to run down to Ightham in Kent,
and pay a call on Mr. Benjamin Harrison. In the room above what used
to be Mr. Harrison's grocery-store, eoliths beyond all count are on
view, which he has managed to amass in his rare moments of leisure.
As he lovingly cons the stones over, and shows off their points, his
enthusiasm is likely to prove catching. But the visitor, we shall
suppose, is sceptical. Very good; it is not far, though a stiffish
pull, to Ash on the top of the North Downs. Hereabouts are Mr.
Harrison's hunting-grounds. Over these stony tracts he has conducted
Sir Joseph Prestwich and Sir John Evans, to convince the one authority,
but not the other. Mark this pebbly drift of rusty-red colour spread
irregularly along the fields, as if the relics of some ancient stream
or flood. On the surface, if you are lucky, you may pick up an
unquestionable palaeolith of early type, with the rusty-red stain of
the gravel over it to show that it has lain there for ages. But both
on and below the surface, the gravel being perhaps from five to seven
feet deep, another type of stone occurs, the so-called eolith. It is
picked out from amongst ordinary stones partly because of its shape,
and partly because of rough and much-worn chippings that suggest the
hand of art or of nature, according to your turn of mind. Take one
by itself, explains Mr. Harrison, and you will be sure to rank it as
ordinary road-metal. But take a series together, and then, he urges,
the sight of the same forms over and over again will persuade you in
the end that human design, not aimless chance, has been at work here.