114 BULLETIN OF THE LIVERPOOL MUSEUMS. 
the action of weather or water upon them. The figures given in the 
Journal of the Anthropological Institute (vol. xxvii., pls. ix., x., 1897) in illustra- 
tion of Mr. Seton-Karr’s remarks when exhibiting them before that Society 
are somewhat misleading, in that, by having been reproduced from sepia 
sketches, they suggest implements much rounded and worn, which in 
reality they are not. If these works must be ascribed to paleolithic man, 
then the Paleolithic Age in Northern Africa was far later than that so 
designated in Europe ; which would make it impossible to predicate “ unity 
of race” or “close contact” between the two peoples. 
The great interest of the discovery of these implements consists, in 
the opinion of Sir John Evans, “in the identity in form of the implements 
with those found in the pleistocene deposits of north-western Europe and 
elsewhere. Any one comparing the implements from such widely-separated 
localities, one with the other, must feel that if they have not been actually 
made by the same race of men, there must have been some contact of the 
closest kind between the races who manufactured implements of such 
identical forms.” If such reasoning may be accepted, we must also infer “a 
contact of the closest kind” between the New Race workers of Egypt and 
the American fabricators of the two beautifully flaked and formed implements 
figured in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896, p. 482, 
from Naples, Illinois (No. 43,133, in the National Museum), which have the 
very same form as implements tigured by Professor Petrie, and are almost, 
but not quite, as fine examples of the flaker’s art; as well as between the 
X{Ith dynasty artificers, who made the specimens from the Wady el Sheikh 
and from Naqada, and those who manufactured the almost similar specimens 
from Columbia County, Georgia (No. 172,559, United States National 
Museum), figured in the same volume, p. 430; and equally that the 
ancient Maoris and the early American Indians were in “contact of the 
closest kind” since it would be impossible for the greatest expert in Maori 
art to distinguish between the true Maori ‘meri’ and similar implements 
discovered in America, and figured in the same volume of the Smithsonian Report. 
Is it not more likely that flint, quartzite and jade in their working lend 
themselves better to certain forms than others, and that all workers in 
these materials in different ages and regions have independently found out 
the forms for similar uses best suited to the material common to them ? 
The most finished stone implement, too, it should be remembered, must 
also pass from the primitive up to the more perfect stage, and that many 
of the ruder forms of implements assigned to paleolithic man are but 
“wasters” from the workshop of perhaps a master in the art of stone 
manufacture of a much later age. 
To sum up these remarks :—I have described with some minuteness 
the implements with the localities where they were found in the Wady el 
Sheikh, because of the magnitude of the collection and the conditions under 
which it was discovered. I have, by comparing these flints with others dated 
by Professor Petrie’s labours, indicated the age to which they probably 
belong as the XIIth dynasty, going back perhaps, but not probably, to the 
IVth dynasty, but also with great likelihood coming down to a much more 
recent date, as the views of the present condition of the shafts on p. 104 
suggest. 1 have shown that various depths of “zeonic tinting” (even to the 
deepest “ paleeolithic” patina) and a soft, polished surface (both of which are 
characters long depended on as sure marks of flints of high antiquity) have 
been acquired far within the historic period ; that implements which would 
unhesitatingly be classed as paleolithic from their form, patina, and surface 
condition, occur in association in the same workings with those I have 
assigned to the XIIth dynasty; but I can find no reason for referring them to a 
higher antiquity ; that many of the so-called “paleolithic” finds by 
