_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Very peculiar, certainly. Who on earth can have amused himself with drawing a misshapen flint? There must be some riddle in it; some ænigma, as insoluble to me as _Aelia Laelia Crispis_.{ 1}
1 This ænigma has been the subject of many learned disquisitions. The reader who is unacquainted with it may find it under the article 'ænigma' in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_; and probably in every other encyclopaedia.
Lord Curryfin, and others of the party, were successively asked their opinions. One of the young ladies guessed it to be the petrifaction of an antediluvian mussel. Lord Curryfin said petrifactions were often siliceous, but never pure silex; which this purported to be. It gave him the idea of an ass's head; which, however, could not by any process have been turned into flint.
Conjecture being exhausted, Mr. MacBorrowdale said, 'It is a thing they call a Celt. The ass's head is somewhat germane to the matter. The Artium Societatis Syndicus Et Socii have determined that it is a weapon of war, evidently of human manufacture. It has been found, with many others like it, among bones of mammoths and other extinct animals, and is therefore held to prove that men and mammoths were contemporaries.'
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ A weapon of war? Had it a handle? Is there a hole for a handle?
_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ That does not appear.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ These flints, and no other traces of men, among the bones of mammoths?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ What do the Artium Societatis Syndicus Et Socii suppose to have become of the men who produced these demonstrations of high aboriginal art?
_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ They think these finished specimens of skill in the art of chipping prove that the human race is of greater antiquity than has been previously supposed; and the fact that there is no other relic to prove the position they consider of no moment whatever.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Ha! ha! ha! This beats the Elephant in the Moon,{ 1} which turned out to be a mouse in a telescope. But I can help them to an explanation of what became of these primaeval men-of-arms. They were an ethereal race, and evaporated.
1 See Butler's poem, with that title, in his _Miscellaneous Works_.