346 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Nov., 



[Hipparion] antelopinum. When stooping for a tooth of the latter, Dr. 

 Noetling found some chipped flint flakes, partly embedded in and 

 projecting from the conglomerate ; and close to the fossil tooth was 

 one in particular, which he describes and figures (Figs, i, la, and i^). 

 Figs. I and la are here reproduced. 3 About a dozen other flint flakes 

 were also found in the rock. Some appear to have been like ordinary 

 flattish "ridge-flakes," and up to about 40 mm, in length ; some were 

 smaller and more or less triangular ; four of these last are figured 

 (Figs. 2, 3, 4, and 5), each in three aspects. 



The chief and largest of the flint flakes, thus fortunately observed 

 and carefully extracted by a trustworthy observer, is elongate-oblong 

 in shape, 45 mm. long by 20 mm. wide ; rounded by chipping at one 

 end, obliquely truncate at the other, and ridged on both faces ; side- 

 edges thin and sharp, almost parallel. It is sharply ridged on one 

 face (Fig. i) by the removal of somewhat symmetrical flakes struck 

 off" at right angles to the edges and the ridge. The other face (Fig. la) 

 is bluntly ridged, a narrow portion of the original flake-face remaining 



la. /^j% 



along the middle, from which the sides slope more regularly on one 

 side than the other ; one edge having been more irregularly chipped, 

 or, perhaps, subsequently broken, into a ragged and slightly concave 

 outline. 



There is no doubt of this being an artificially-dressed flake of 

 flint, actually dug out by an experienced geologist of the indian 

 Geological Survey, or of the ferruginous conglomerate that con- 

 tains it and other dressed flakes, belonging to the Yenangyoung 

 Tertiaries of Burma, and to be regarded either as an Upper Miocene 

 bed, that is, of the latest Miocene age, or, at the least, of the 

 earliest Pliocene. 



I. — The surface of India has, of course, yielded numerous flakes 

 of agate and flint that have been manipulated by Man, as well as 

 many stone implements of better workmanship. For recorded 

 instances, see K-vslus's Stone Implements, etc., 1872, pp. 79, 103, 115, 



3 Fig. lb, intended for an edge view, is apparently unsatisfactory in its 

 perspective, 



