1897] THE AUTHENTICITY OF PLATEAU MAN 333 
against the upper edges of the flint slabs and force off small flakes. 
Then if the flint slab be moved and inverted, renewed pressure 
would similarly crush the other edge, and thus account for the cases 
in which both edges have been chipped. 
A fact which seems to me conclusive proof that the chipping 
was due to pressure by some yielding material from above is sup- 
plied by hollow flints. The decay of a sponge often leaves a hollow 
in the middle of a flint block; the edges of such hollows in plateau 
flints are chipped in precisely the same way as the edges. The arti- 
ficial chipping of such edges by blows from another stone would be 
difficult, and the work would have been absolutely wasted to eolithic 
man. But the forcing of the finer constituents of the gravel across 
the hollows under the pressure from overlying material might easily 
have produced these crushed and apparently worked edges. 
The view that the plateau flints show no sign of human work- 
manship I am glad to find supported by the high authority of Sir 
John Evans, who, in a letter of April 1896, said: “I see nothing 
upon them that is undoubtedly the result of human work or use; 
on the contrary, the rolling and wearing of the edges seem to me 
more probably caused by natural agencies—lI see nothing but the 
hand of nature upon them.” After a careful study of specimens 
lately selected as the most convincing by Mr Harrison himself, I 
am in absolute agreement with this opinion. And as the chipping 
of the flints was apparently caused by the action of extreme cold 
upon the gravels, movements in which were produced by the action 
of ice, I propose for these shaped flints the name of ‘ Glacioliths.’ 
Wm. CUNNINGTON. 
