14 



tliat aLnnclaiice of tliis stone is <il»tjiiiia1)le in the immediate 

 neighbourhood. Several of the implements taken from this 

 f^ravel, have been sent to the Jermyn Street and British 

 Museums ; and their p;enuineness lias been reco<j;nised by Sir 

 Pioderiek Murchison and ^ir -I. Lubl)oek. The rock from which 

 these implements have been Haked oflf is not oidy extremely 

 hard, a property which j^ives to the implements their sharp 

 euttino- edges, but is tough aiui durable: and for these qualities 

 is was selected by the troops as material for building Fort 

 Glamorgan and the Commissariat Stores. These buildings 

 have now been in existence forty years. The weather-exposed 

 surface on the stones in these buildings is as fresh in colour, 

 the merest scratch with the chisel as clear, and every edge as 

 tharp, as if the buildings had been completed yesterday. The 

 implements made of this same stone have lost all semblance of 

 their original colour, their edges are blunted, they have an 

 outer decomposed crust one sixth of an incli in thickness. 

 These implements are fouiul scattered throughout the whole 

 line of gravel whenever it is exposed. At the time when this 

 line was the river's edge, as we shall presentl.y see we have good 

 reason to believe it once was, these implements were probably 

 dropped on or near the bank, and were subsequently washed and 

 rolled into their present prosition along with the surrounding 

 gravel. In some instances they have evidently l)een maiui- 

 factured and left on the very spot where they are now found. 

 " Cores "' of blocks from which weapons have been flaked off 

 have in several cases both by ^h. Mackay and myself been 

 found surrounded, not indeed by well-formed iuipleiueiits which 

 would naturally be carried oti" by the maker, but by numerous 

 fragments and ill-formed weapons which were probably thrown 

 aside as useless. It is not irrational to suppose, that the 

 water's edge with its open stony margin, would afford a con- 

 venient site to which the savage hunter might bring his block, 

 and hammer off with the aid of stones and pebbles his uncouth 



