Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 237 



bending-np of the shale above the nodules and down below them, 

 the close but unconformable covermg of Permian breccia, and the 

 staining of the whole section suggests, if indeed it does not 

 demonstrate, to the author that the growth of the cone-in-coue took 

 place subsequently to the deposit of the Permian breccia. Several 

 American and other examples are described, and a series of con- 

 clusions are appended to the paper. 



III.— April 6, 1898.— W. Whitaker, B.A., F.R.S., President, in the 



Chair. 



Professor T. Rupert Jones exhibited and commented upon a series 

 of large stone implements, sent to England by Mr. Sidney Eyan, 

 from the tin-bearing gravels of the Eiubabaan in Swaziland (South 

 Africa). They consist of fine-grained quartzite, chert, lydite, 

 siliceous schist, and quartzites composed of breccia and grit-stones, 

 one of the latter mylonized. He also exhibited some corresponding 

 rock-specimens from the neighbouring Ingewenyaberg, with a map 

 and section prepared by Mr. S. Eyan. Some similar implements 

 from the same district, lent by Mr. Nicol Brown, F.G.S., and some 

 analogous implements of rough quartzite, from Somaliland, lent by 

 the Rev. R. A. BuUen, F.G.S., were also exhibited. 



Professor H. G. Seeley exhibited the humerus of a Plesiosaurian 

 in which the substance of the bone was almost entirely replaced by 

 opal. He explained that the fossil was from the opal-mines of New 

 South Wales. Externally there is no indication of its internal 

 condition as a pseudomorph, and it had been broken to ascertain its 

 commercial value as opal. It is translucent ; of a bluish tint, with 

 a slight red fire. So far as he was aware, it was the only example 

 of a fossil bone in this condition ; and he was indebted to Messrs. 

 Hasluck, the opal merchants, for the opportunity of placing the 

 specimen before the Fellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On some Paleeolithic Implements from the Plateau-Gravels, 

 and their Evidence concerning 'Eolithic' Man." By W. Cunnington, 

 Esq., F.G.S. 



Although at first inclined to believe that the chipping on the 

 " Eoliths " of the plateau-gravels was the work of man, the author 

 has been led to recant this opinion by the detailed study of specimens 

 lent or given to him by Mr. B. Harrison. His reasons are mainly 

 based on the facts that the chipping is of different dates, even upon 

 the same specimen, and that it was produced after the specimens 

 were embedded in the gravel. 



A further series of specimens, which, although not found actually 

 in situ in the gravels, present undoubted evidence that they came 

 from these, are considered by the author to be of Pala3olithic type. 

 One of them appeared to have gone through the following stages: — 

 fiist it was fashioned by man into a PalEeolithic implement; then it 



