70 Annals of tJte South African JShiseum. 



9 or 10 inches long, and perhaps 1^ or 2 inches at the broadest. 

 It is in the King Williamstown Museum." Of course you understand 

 that, so far as finding on the surface goes, the implements are most 

 abundant away from the shell mounds : they are in plenty on the 

 l)roken ridges just a little back from the beach." 



Among the reasons given by Mr. McKay for attributing a great 

 antiquity to these finds are the following : — 



" Some years ago in opening a quarry a very large mound of 

 shells was discovered on the left bank of the Quigney Eiver at its 

 junction with the Buffalo. It was covered with vegetable soil, with 

 trees growing on it, just like the section remaining to-day. The 

 Harbour "Works engineers have removed upwards of 375,000 cubic 

 feet of these shells to fill up the lagoon. Any one examining what 

 remains of this mound will find it composed principally of limpet, 

 mussel, oyster, haliotis, and other shells of edible species, with 

 bones of fish and birds as well as of antelopes, hippopotamus, and 

 other mammalia, layers of ashes, fragments of charcoal, and pieces 

 of coarse pottery. No stone implement has l)een found, but stones 

 showing the action of fire are common." 



"... to afi'ord material for forming the railway embankment. 

 The ground (covered by a dense bush) consisted of from 4 to 5 feet 

 of stiff clay soil followed by about a foot of travelled gravel, that is 

 rolled gravel having a close resemblance to shot of different sizes. 

 A little above the gravel line a large number of stone implements 

 were found, chiefly rubbers ; a few spear-heads (lanceolate knife- 

 scrapers) f were found with stone fragments of coarse pottery, &c. 

 Mr. Gately's residence stands on the rounded top of an isolated 

 knoll or small hill which is connected with the site of East London 

 by a narrow neck. This neck is the dividing ridge of two water- 

 courses that nearly surround the hill before they unite and find their 

 way to the first creek. These two water-courses have been the 

 cause of the isolation of the hill. On its top there is a layer of black 

 mud from 2 to 3 feet thick, below that there is from 1 to 2 feet 

 of decomposed rock before solid rock is reached. Out of this black 

 mud Mr. Gately has dug many implements and bones ; among them 

 stone-flakes, spear-heads (knife- scrapers),! coarse pottery, teeth and 

 bones of hippopotamus . . . There was a time when Mr. Gately's 

 house was not a hill, and the implements found there are as old 

 as that time. . . . Fringing in detached patches the whole South- 

 Eastern coast of Africa there exists a peculiar wind-stratified 



* I have seen the example. It is a strongly incurved flake or flaker and of 

 undoubted palaeolithic type. t The words in brackets are mine. 



