[183] Kemble, _Horae Ferales_ (1863), p. 190, pl. xiv.
ON THE RESEMBLANCES OF THE WEAPONS OF EARLY RACES; THEIR VARIATIONS, CONTINUITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM: METAL PERIOD.[184]
Having in two previous lectures upon ‘Primitive Warfare’, delivered at this Institution, spoken of the general principles to be observed in studying the development of the weapons of savages and early races, I need not preface the remarks I am about to offer by any detailed allusion to the generalizations which I have already ventured to make, but I will proceed at once to lay before you some additional facts which I have collected in continuation of the same subject.
This I do the more readily, because I hold strongly to the opinion that the value of a communication of this kind may, in a great degree, be measured by the attention which is paid to the accumulation of facts, and to the comparative brevity and simplicity of that portion of it which relates to theory. Without general principles, however, we should have no incentive to collect and systematize our facts, and they are therefore valuable even where they involve--and in a new field of study, such as I am now treating, with very scanty materials as yet at our disposal to assist conjecture, I can hardly hope they should not involve--a certain amount of error.
Before entering upon the subject of the origin of metal implements, I must, however, revert to one part of my former communication, in order to show that a statement I then made in reference to the geographical distribution of the boomerang has since had some light thrown upon it by the researches of one of our most eminent men of science. It will, perhaps, be remembered by those who did me the honour of reading my last lecture, which was printed in vol. xii of the _Journal_, that, in describing the weapons of the Australians, I showed, by means of numerous illustrations of the varieties of each class of weapon from that country, that they all passed one into the other by connecting links, so that where a sufficient number of them are arranged in such a manner as to exhibit their continuity, it is often impossible to determine any definite line of separation between them. I also showed that the form of each weapon was determined by the form of the stem or branch of the tree out of which it was made, the outline of all these implements conforming to the grain of the wood; and the inference which I drew from this was, that it showed a very low state of intellect on the part of the constructors, the several classes of implements not having been designed originally for their respective purposes, but produced accidentally, and then applied during subsequent ages to the several uses to which in practice they appeared most suited.