Palceolithic and earlier Flint Implements. 41 



least of the Crag specimens were good Palaeolithic types. He showed 

 ill addition three specimens of bone (radius and rib of Bos) which had 

 been cut very neatly by a flint instrument. Two flint implements 

 were also exhibited which, by the difference of patina, indicated that 

 they had been reworked at a much later date. 



Mr. W. Dale exhibited a series of naturally formed or naturally 

 fractured flints ; these included an assortment of flakes caused by the 

 bursting or expansion of the flint. One of these, on the base of an 

 Echinoid, remains in situ, and can be taken out and replaced in the 

 cavity. Some specimens illustrated the ' starch-fracture ' arising 

 from the partly crystalline nature of the flint and producing irregular 

 prisms. From implementiferous gravels he exhibited a quantity of 

 the fossil organisms known as Coscinopora. In the Chalk these are 

 imperfectly pierced, but in the gravel the holes become enlarged, and 

 Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Worthington Smith thought that they 

 might have been used as ornaments. The specimens shown were 

 obtained from a gravel-digger, who was in the habit of placing them 

 on strings. Flints which simulate Palceolithic implements in their 

 form were also shown, and a collection of natural shapes somewhat 

 resembling animal forms, one of them strikingly like a human head. 

 The speaker would not have thought it worth while to show these 

 last, but for the fact that the vagaries of the late Auberon Herbert 

 had found another exponent, and the Journal of the British Archaeo- 

 logical Association had this year published drawings of a number of 

 these objects and advanced them to the dignity of artefacts. 



Mr. N. F. Robarts wished to draw particular attention to some of 

 the eoliths which he exhibited, found upon the plateau of the North 

 Downs in Surrey, at 800 feet above O.D., near the crest of the 

 escarpment. Of these some were rolled, and it was therefore evident 

 that these must have been derived from the Chalk dome which 

 formerly existed over the Weald, 



Mr. Gr. W. Lamplugh showed a fragment of glaciated clay-stone of 

 rectangular shape from the Boulder-clay of a Flintshire collier}'- 

 shaft, as an example of the artificial aspect occasionally brought 

 about by natural fracture. The shape of this example was remarkably 

 close to that of a manufactured whetstone. The speaker observed 

 that, where the cause of fracture Avas uncertain, it became of prime 

 consequence to know the proportion that selected specimens bore to 

 the total number examined: since, if the supply of naturally fractured 

 stones be unlimited, exceptional types such as the specimen that he 

 exhibited must occasionally be found. 



Mr. W. H. Cook exhibited fifty examples of eoliths and thirty 

 palaeoliths collected from the northern flank of the Weald. Aa 

 a result of his investigations the speaker questioned the pre-Palaeolithic 

 age of the eoliths of this area: for during the last six years he had 

 found considerable numbers of palaeoliths lying in conjunction with 

 eoliths on the surface at levels ranging from 450 to 765 feet above 

 O.D. The implements of both classes are in a precisely similar 

 mineral condition, and the amount of abrasion is likewise common 

 to both. A typical Kentish eolith is a deeply patinated nodule^ of 

 flint with one or more of its edges chipped, such chipped edges being 



