16 SIR WILLIAM DAWSON, C.M.G., LL.IX, F.R.S., 



that these were scraped in the soft limestone with pointed 

 flints, such as are often found abundantly in the vicinity of 

 such tombs. 



(4.) It is, however, probable that in very ancient times 

 when metals were scarce and dear, flint implements were in 

 much more common use than in later times. Perhaps the 

 most interesting cage of this is the comparison made by 

 Petrie (Nature, Dec. 5th, 1889) of two towns, Kahun and 

 Gurob, 50 miles south of Cairo, and on the two sides of the 

 entrance to the Fayum. The former town belongs to the 

 early time of the 12th Dynasty, the latter to the, 19th. In the 

 former flint flakes are abundant, of various forms, and evi- 

 dently applied to many uses. Among other tools a wooden 

 sickle was found, armed with saw-edged flint flakes on the 

 cutting side, thus connecting flint flakes with the reaping of 

 grain. Petrie figures an example of this. In the other and 

 later site flint flakes scarcely occur, and are rude and evidently 

 applied to fewer uses. This seems to be an excellent illus- 

 tration of the progress in one locality from a stone to a metal 

 age. The interval of time amounts, however, to at least a 

 thousand years, and the earlier period, that of Usurtasen II, 

 was a time of high civilisation and great progress in the arts 

 of life, though farmers in the central district "of Egypt were 

 still reaping their fields with flint flakes. A parallel to this 

 is found in the prevalent use of stone for hoes, &c., among 

 the more civilised American nations, to which I directed 

 attention in a paper on " Fossil A gricultural Implements," in 

 the Transactions of this Society several years ago. 



This continuous use of flint flakes among a civilised people, 

 and the fact remarked by Petrie, and which has been ob- 

 served also in Scotland and America, that the flint imple- 

 ments become ruder and more coarse as they are supplanted 

 by metal, should furnish a caution against sweeping gene- 

 ralisations as to ages of stone and metal, and of progress in 

 the manufacture of flint tools and weapons. While at some 

 times and in some localities there has been an advance from 

 rude to finer implements, in other instances the process has 

 been reversed. 



In connection with the materials referred to in this paper, 

 certain geological and historical facts impress themselves 

 very strongly on our minds. 



All the rocks of the Nile Valley, from the ancient crystalline 

 and probably Laurentian granites and gneisses to the modern 



