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HA R D WICKE ' S S CIE NCE- G O SSI P. 



GEOLOGY, &c. 



A Paleolithic Workshop. — Mr. J. Allen 

 Brown, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., recently read a paper 

 before the Antiquarian Society, on his discovery of a 

 Palaeolithic workshop floor of the Drift period, near 

 Ealing. In West Middlesex such old floors or former 

 land surfaces are often discernible, and such habitable 

 spots have been preserved in different parts of the 

 Thames Valley, though they have frequently been 

 disturbed, removed, and re-deposited in other places 

 by the changing course, and curves of the wider river 

 of the past, and by floods and other conditions of the 

 severer climate which then prevailed. The palaeo- 

 lithic workshop floor is about one hundred feet above 

 the present bed of the Thames, and about two miles 

 distant from it, is situated near the junction between 

 the Creffield Road and Mason's Green Road, Acton. 

 The floor is here about six feet from the surface, with 

 a steeper slope to the river than the present surface, 

 it is covered to this extent with sand, brickearth, 

 and trail deposits. At this site, on an area of about 

 forty feet square, were found nearly 600 unabraded 

 worked flints, including long spear or javelin heads, 

 from five to six inches long, neatly trimmed to a 

 point, and of the same form as those of obsidian, fix., 

 now employed by the natives of New Caledonia, the 

 Admiralty Islands, and Australia, for insertion into 

 the shafts of their spears, to which they were fixed 

 by lashings, &c. There were also shorter ones, not 

 only wrought along the sides to the point where the 

 flake required trimming, but also neatly chipped at 

 the butts into rough rudimentary tangs. Such spear- 

 heads have not only been described by Messrs. Lartet 

 and Christy from the cave of Le Moustier, in the 

 Dordogne, but have been met with in the alluvial 

 deposits of the Somme at Abbeville, the Seine, and 

 other French rivers, as well as by Dr. J. Evans, from 

 Mildenhall, &c. Roughly wrought hatchets, axes, 

 or choppers formed from flakes chipped on one or 

 both faces to a cutting edge were also found rather 

 abundantly on the floor. They are probably some of 

 the earliest rude celt forms. Large numbers of 

 knives formed from flakes, often neatly worked on 

 the edge with fine secondary work and also saws 

 chipped with a distinctly serrated edge, were exhibited 

 from this site, with other tools apparently intended 

 to be used as chisels, &c. Large numbers of waste 

 flakes as well as blocks of flint which had been worked 

 upon, were also found at this spot ; and in Ealing, 

 about two miles distant, in a deposit of about the 

 same age, a large boulder of metamorphic rock, 

 concave on both faces and roughened and scored in 

 the hollow from use, was met with ; it is 7^ inches 

 long ; and a quartzite boulder which fits the hollow, 

 was found near it, in fine gravel. They are the first 

 pounding-stones discovered in the drift deposits. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



A Wasp's Nest. — I have read this article by 

 L'Aigle in a recent number of Science-Gossip, with 

 considerable interest, but would suggest that some 

 further particulars would greatly enhance its value. 

 I am endeavouring to collect authentic information 

 concerning our social wasps. Can your corre- 

 spondent name this species ? In what part of the 

 country does he live ? What was the length of life 

 of his wasps, (1) as eggs, (2) as larvae, (3) as pupce ? 

 About what date was the nest abandoned ? for, I 

 suppose, if a British nest, it is deserted now. L'Aigle 

 says the paper was made from decayed wood. Did 

 he actually see this particular wasp gathering decayed 

 wood ? and did he see it gathering materials from any 

 other source ? He also says that the wasp worked 

 day and night ; does this mean that it worked all 

 through the night, as hornets are said to do, or only, 

 as is usually the case with Vcspa Germanica and V. 

 vulgaris, until about an hour after sunset? I 

 presume that the illustrations accompanying the 

 article were taken from the particular nest alluded to. 

 I may take this opportunity of pointing out the im- 

 portance in many cases of affixing the name of the 

 place where the observations were made. And 

 again, remarks upon the earliness and lateness of 

 flowering, etc., are of little value when they are 

 evidently inserted long after they have been written, 

 and when the printer omits the date. — F. W. Elliot. 



Bees' Stings. — If bees' stings are smooth, and 

 wasps' so barbed, how is it that hive bees leave the 

 sting behind so much oftener than wasps do ? — F. IV. 

 Elliot. 



Male Wasps. — I should be glad to be informed 

 where and when the males of the common wasps are 

 to be found, and how they may be outwardly dis- 

 tinguished from the queens ? — Reginald IV. Christy. 



Bees and Wasps' Stings. — I am amused at your 

 correspondent, W. E. Harper, correcting T. Winder 

 about the barbs on sting of wasp, and advise him to 

 look again more carefully. Years ago I dissected 

 and mounted dozens, but never found one without 

 the barbs. Their visibility may perhaps depend on 

 the position the sting is in. All I can say is that, 

 unless the stings of bees and wasps are different to 

 what they used to be, both are barbed. — E. C, 

 Mat loci. 



Curious Phenomenon on Ice. — I should feel 

 obliged if some of your correspondents could give a 

 satisfactory solution of the following occurrence. A 

 friend of mine, Mr. John Stirling, of Fairburn, in 

 Ross-shire, on the border of Inverness-shire, made a 

 new curling-pond last summer about 150 yards X 80 

 yards, and 3 feet deep, in a place where there was 

 a good deal of peat, and an artificial bank was made 

 at the low end puddled with peat. On the other 

 sides there are natural banks,"mostly peat, and a lead 

 was made from the River Orrin to supply the pond. 

 On the 13th of December the ice was strong enough 

 to skate on, when a number of white spots were 

 observed on it as though there was air underneath, 

 and the ice was weak on these spots. They were 

 mostly on the south or river side of the pond. On 

 the 14th we curled on the pond (our rink), but only 

 where there were no white spots, as where they were 

 the ice would not stand curling — therefore a large 

 portion of the pond was useless for curling. One of 

 the party thought it would be a good thing to let out 



