13 



such abundance as to justify the presumption of the existence 

 of liabitations. With reference to [the shell mounds so freely 

 scattered ronnd the mouth of the river, I "will here merely say 

 that they hear evidence of considerable age ; they are buried in 

 many instances under sand and vegetable mould, and are in 

 some cases overgrown with thick bush, only having been 

 discovered by cuttings for railway and other purposes. Neverthe- 

 less, whatever the antitj[uity of these shell mounds, and in some 

 cases it is considerable, we shall presently* see that they came 

 into existence ages after stone-implements were first used in 

 this locality. 



Turning now to the stone-implements themselves, we find 

 that those the antiquity of which, from their position, we are 

 best able to estimate, are found in a well-marked gravel deposit 

 on the western bank of the Buffalo. It lies about half way 

 between Fort Glamorgan and the Port Office, and runs in a 

 well-marked line about seventy feet above the present level of 

 the river and parallel to the present course. It has been 

 exposed in several places by cuttings for roads and by quarrj'ings 

 for building-stone road-mending and other purposes. It lies 

 buried under a well-defined layer of blaek river mud, this being 

 again covered with sand of wind-drifted origin, which in its 

 turn is in places covered by a layer of vegetable mould on which 

 grass and bush were at one time growing. The implements 

 found in this gravel are the types found in the valley of the 

 Somme. They are not however made of flint, which substance 

 is nowhere to be found in this district, but of a hard sub- 

 crystalline rock found in the inmiediate vicinity of the green- 

 stone dykes so numerous in South Africa. One of these dykes, 

 half a mile in width, which crosses the river obliquely, is 

 traversed b}- the Buffalo from the " ebb and flow " to the second 

 creek, a distance of about two miles. From the second creek 

 the edge of this dyke passes Fort Glamorgan to Point Hood, so 



