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words what I have to say. I would, in the first place, remark that th^re 

 is in the British Museum a very remarkable flint implement which has 

 been brought from Egyjit. It is, probably, not prehistoric ; but it is, never- 

 theless, of very respectable antiquity. I allude to a very fine dagger- 

 shaped flint, with the handle still in its place ; and, what is more, it has 

 remnants of the sheath on it. The only comparable specimen I know of is 

 that illustrated and described by Christy and others as found in Mexico, 

 where it was at one time, no doubt, an honoured if not revered sacrificial 

 knife. Dr. Dawson has brought before us to-night the mode in which 

 implements are made of flint, and has shown how men having similar 

 means and intentions, and aiming at similar ends, must necessarily, out of 

 the same materials, arrive at similar results. This, doubtless, has been the 

 case all over the world. Flint is very common, and occurs in every lime- 

 stone. It is not peculiar to any place, and is as common in the Egyptian 

 limestone as elsewhere. Wherever flint is found it has been made into flint 

 implements, and these have always been made in the same way, because it 

 always breaks in the same way. But with regard to this old gravel of sand- 

 stone, flint, and calcareous sand of the Nile Valley, I would ask Dr. 

 Dawson to think over the point he has stated in relation to the number of 

 flint chips which occur with bulbs of percussion, and those which occur 

 without such bulbs. He is too far away from the place now to collect 

 statistics ; nevertheless, they will be necessary to enable us to arrive at a 

 conclusion as to whether, under his mode of putting it, nature has made 

 many bulbed flints. I do not think it likely that many can have been 

 accidentally produced ; because it requires a continued succession of blows 

 in a particular line, on one continuous edge, to produce bulbed flakes. 

 Nature may knock boulders together by thousands and millions, but she 

 can very seldom repeat her blows in exactly the same way upon the same 

 edge, one block coming down upon another, and the upper stones knocking 

 one edge of the suff'ering block, so that flakes are regularly driven off with 

 bulbed faces. Frost does not act so unless there are little fossils or faults 

 in the flint that might enable it thus to cause a bulb. I was under the 

 impression that General Pitt-Rivers found something more than a simple 

 flake, and I think it would be well worth the while of those who have heard 

 Dr. Dawson's paper, to do what he has recommended, and read General Pitt- 

 Eivers' memoir, so that they may judge for themselves. There are some 

 very good observations on the method of flint implement-making in a 

 Eeport on the manufacture of gun-flints by Mr. Skertchly. There are some 

 other remarks I should like to make : I think it not impossible that man 

 may have lived in Egypt in those very remote times when there were only 

 islands in what now forms the Egyptian area, and when the river ran among 

 them. There is no reason why this should not have been the case ; and if 

 this were so, there can be no reason why there should not be artificially- 

 made flint-flakes in those ancient water-courses. They arc undoubtedly 

 old. Of course, geologically speaking, the period referred to may be re- 

 garded as only yesterday or last evening, which would signify a few hundreds 



