ivith a Coating of Chalcedony. 341 



This is all the information" we were able to collect on the 

 spot, nor has any thing been discovered which could lead 

 to the least conjecture upon the epoch or circumstances of 

 its being buried below ground; but the singularities which 

 it presents sufficiently excite the attention of the antiquary, 

 the naturalist, and the artist, to induce them to gratify their 

 curiosity by an examination of what remains of it. 



It is a head sculptured upon a piece of flint of the same 

 kind as that of which gun-flints are made. From the 

 lower extremity of the chin to the summit of the cranium 

 it measures 3 inches 4 lines ; from the forehead to the oc- 

 ciput, 76 millimetres; its circumference, taken above the 

 nose, is 236 millimetres. 



A hole of 13 millimetres in diameter, made in the lower 

 part, is still filled up with plaster mixed with lime, and 

 seems to have served to unite the head with the body of the 

 figure, the latter part being probably of silex also, or of 

 some other material more easy to be wrought upon, and 

 which, according to the usual proportions, may have been 

 about 54 centimetres: so that the whole statue may have 

 been about 63 centimetres, or 23 inches 4 lines in length. 



The head-dress indicates a male figure ; the hair is short, 

 and confined by a simple narrow bandage, as worn by the 

 Greeks and Romans; a circumstance which, joined to the 

 style of the figure, seems to ascribe to this work a date far 

 remoter than the time of the Gauls, although the eye-balls 

 arc strongly marked in it, which is very seldom seen in any 

 true antique monument. 



But we leave to more competent judges the discussion of 

 these points, which it appears only necessary in us merely 

 to mention in order to complete the description of the mo- 

 nument, and to present in its true light the question which 

 has chiefly excited the attention of the Institute. 



The flint of which this head is fonjied has been covered, 

 wherever it was not broken or rubbed, with a coating of a 

 fine white, of a thickness scarcely perceptible; it was at- 

 tacked by none of the acids, and it united to a hardness at 

 least equal to that of chalcedony, the vitreous consistence 

 Z3 of 



