Miscellaneous. 155 
Foote, of the Geological Survey of India, near Madras. These 
were all of the ruder forms, so well known as characterizing the 
flint implements which have excited so much attention within the last 
few years in Kurope. They were all formed of dense semivitreous 
quartzite—a rock which occurred in immense abundance in districts 
close to where these implements had been found, and which formed 
a very good substitute for the flints of north Europe. This was the 
first instance in which, so far as he knew, such stone implements had 
~ been found in India in situ. True celts, of a totally different type 
and much higher finish, and in every respect identical with those 
found in Scotland and Ireland, had been met with in large numbers 
in Central India, but never actually imbedded in any deposits. They 
were invariably found under holy trees or in sacred places, and were 
objects of reverence and worship to the people, who could give no 
information as to the source from which they had been originally 
gathered together. A single and very doubtful fragment of a stone 
implement had been found by Mr. W. Theobald, jun., in examining 
the deposits of the Gangetic plains near the Soane river. This oc- 
curred in the Kunkurry clay of that district ; but, with this excep- 
tion, he was not aware of any stone implements of any kind having 
previously been noticed im sifu anywhere in India. Those now on 
the table had been collected partly by himself, from a ferruginous 
lateritic gravel-bed, which extended irregularly over a very large 
area west of Madras. In places this was at least 15 feet below the 
surface, cut through by streams, and in one such place, from which 
some of the specimens on the table were procured, there stood an 
old ruined pagoda on the surface, evidencing that, at least at the 
time of its construction, that surface was a permanent one. This 
bed of gravel was in many places exposed on the surface, and had 
been partially denuded ; and it was in such localities, where these 
implements had been washed out of the bed, and lay strewed on the 
surface, that they were found most plentifully. 
Mr. Oldham remarked on the great interest attaching to such 
a discovery, and on the probable age of the deposit in which they 
occurred. Another point of interest connected with the history of 
such implements was the remarkable fact that while, scattered in 
abundance over the districts where they occurred, were noble re- 
mains of what would by many be called Druidical character-circles 
of large standing stones, cromlechs, kistvaens, often of large size 
and well preserved, all of which were traditionally referred to the 
Karumbers, a race of which there still existed traces in the hills, 
still all the weapons and implements of every kind found in these 
stoné structures were invariably of iron. No information whatever 
regarding these stone implements could be obtained from the pea- 
santry, who had been quite unaware of their existence.—Journ. of 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No.1. (1864). 
On the Present State of Malacological Nomenclature. 
By Puicip P. Carpenter, B.A., Ph.D. 
At a time when the British Association are about to revise their 
