452 Church — On the Mimosa-Dale Chalybeate. 



with zinc so as to reduce the ferric salts present to the state of prO' 

 to-salts, or ferrous salts, it was found that more than half the iron was 

 in the ferrous condition. It is, however, certain that the water at 

 the spring contains still more of its iron in this state. 



With the limited supply of this chalybeate water at my disposal; 

 the following are the only results which I was able to obtain ; — 



In the gallon. 

 Total solid matter ... ... ... 63.4 9 grains. 



Iron as ferric oxide (Fe^Os) ... ... 19.45 „ 



Sulphuric acid (SO3) 2S.64 „ 



So that out of 63.49 grains of various salts contained in the imperial 

 gallon, no less than 48.09 grains consisted of sulphuric acid and oxide 

 of iron, leaving only 15.40 grains to represent the lime and other 

 ingredients of the water. 



V. — Inquikt into the Eelative Antiquity of Stone and 

 Metallic Weapons. 



By the Eev. Anthony Cumbt, M.A. 



THE Flint and Stone implements sometimes found in this and 

 other countries seem to form a sort of connecting link between 

 geological and human antiquity ; they are certainly the work of man, 

 and they may possibly be older than the invention of metallurgy^ 

 and nearly coeval with the human race : it becomes therefore a 

 matter of some interest to determine whether and to what extent the 

 use of stone implements may have been contemporary with that of 

 metals ; and the references below given will, it is hoped, assist ia 

 elucidating this question. 



I. The Jews from the time of Moses downwards have used stone 

 knives for circumcision ; see the Vulgate and Septuagint in Exod. 

 iv. 25 ; Josh. v. 2, 3 ; also in Josh. xxiv. 30, after mentioning the 

 burial of Joshua, the LXX. add that " they buried with him in his 

 tomb the stone knives with which the Children of Israel had been 

 circumcised in Gilgal after they had come out of Egypt and arrived 

 in Canaan, and there they are unto this very day." This addition to 

 the sacred text is said to exist in the Vatican MS., and therefore may be 

 presumed to be as old as the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (b.c. 284), 

 We might be tempted to conjecture that flint knives had been found 

 in a sepulchral tumidus, supposed to be that of Joshua, and thus had 

 given rise to the story. 



The Phrygian priests of Cybele used flint knives for a somewhat 

 .similar purpose (see CatuU. Ixiii. 5), and the Egyptian embalmers 

 gave the first cut in the body of the deceased with a knife made of 

 Ethiopic stone (Herod, ii. 86 ; Diod. Sic. i. 91), one of these is en- 

 graved by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in his work on the "Manners and 

 Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 262. 



In the time of Xerxes (b.c. 480) the Ethiopians in his army used 

 arrows ponited vsdth a hard stone used in seal engraving ; they had 



