The Stone Ages of South Africa. 15 



notched scrapers, asking whether I considered them to be the handi- 

 work of man. I repUed in the affirmative, adding, however, that 

 Nature's agency had a great deal to do with their present state. 

 Two years afterwards Mr. Leith pubhshed his papei-, illustrated by 

 one plate bearing the legend, " Eoliths from Pretoria." 



It is not possible to attribute to the implements figured by Leith a 

 more ancient origin than to the Chellean, Acheulean, or Mousterian 

 types occurring so abundantly all over South Africa; and this for the 

 following reasons : — 



1. These Pretoria ironstone river gravels are not very ancient. 



2. The notched scrapers are the rarest. 



3. These scrapers are not as smoothly polished as represented in the 

 plate, this smoothness being due to the process-block reproduction. 



4. Only those examples that would prove likely to support the 

 " eolithic " theory were selected for reproduction. 



5. Well-finished palaeoliths were afterwards found in situ, showing 

 therefore contemporaneity with those so-called Eoliths. 



I have received from Mr. Leith himself, and also from other con- 

 tributors, a considerable number of these implements ; they show 

 either no abrasion of the edges in many cases, and again consider- 

 able abrasion in others ; some are notched, others are not ; some are 

 more or less polished ; some again show no sign of having been 

 smoothed either by eolian or water action. But when abraded or 

 partly polished the action is clearly due to the flow of an intermittent 

 river. 



If one compares these specimens with some of the crescent-shaped 

 Eoliths of Harrison, and Reutot, one is certainly struck with the 

 similarity of the deep arcuate emargination of the thinner part of 

 the Pretorian pseudo-eoliths. But the explanation is a simple one. 

 Drawn into the vortex of turbulent waters while in flood, the denser 

 part of the chipped stone offers more resistance to the moving agent, 

 and the thinner lighter part is therefore thrown more forcibly into 

 contact with the abrading obstacles, and suffers in consequence. 

 This is especially illustrated in the knife-scrapers, or chips of the 

 silicious rock found near the Victoria Falls. In no case is the 

 thicker part of the chip dented in the horseshoe fashion claimed for 

 the Kent eohths - (of. Cuts 3, 6, 7, 8 of Fig. 119, PI. XV.). 



For the above reasons the " eolithic " origin of the Pretoria imple- 



* Fig. 28 is a good instance of an abraded chip that on Mr. Leigh's theory 

 should be considered as an eolith. Yet it was found at the foot of Port Elizabeth 

 Hill together with extremely water-worn quartzite implements (Figs. 25, 26, 27, 

 PI. IV.). 



