Know.Es—On Flint Implements. 213 
ordinary basaltic stones, angular and unrounded, with the rough, 
weathered, brownish crust, such as one sees in the soils which have 
been derived from the boulder clay further inland. In examining the 
upper layer of the beach I found it full of such rough stones, mixed 
with clay, and a question was raised in my mind as to the derivation 
of this soil, and the agency employed in bringing it there. The 
boulders and gravel in which the flints are embedded are heaped 
together in a most irregular manner, and, in the majority of sections 
I have had the opportunity of examining, there is a general absence 
of any stratified arrangement, such as would ordinarily be made by 
water. Turning all these matters over in my mind, the whole for- 
mation appears to me not to be a raised beach in the ordinary sense of 
the term, but rather something of the nature of an Esker which has 
received glacial matter on its surface at a time of submergence. If I 
am correct in the various suggestions I have made regarding the 
nature of this so-called raised beach, the term “‘paleeolithic”’ might be 
too modest an application for these implements. They would pro- 
bably be the oldest implements not only in Ireland but in the British 
Isles. At the meeting of the British Association in Dublin, 1878, I 
stated that I thought there was reasonable suspicion that the Larne 
implements and other objects I exhibited were older than neolithic. 
By longer study I may say that I am the more confirmed in this 
view. Laying aside for the present the question of the nature and 
derivation of the deposit in which the flints are embedded, until I 
investigate the matter further, I believe the implements from the 
raised beach are not neolithic, for the following reasons :— 
1. Neolithic implements are tound scattered over the surface, and 
are frequently described as ‘‘ surface implements,” to distinguish 
them from the more ancient implements from the caves and river 
gravels. The implements found at Larne have not this character. 
They are not surface implements, but are found embedded in a forma- 
tion of gravel of considerable thickness. 
2. The form of the implements is not that of the objects which we 
have hitherto known as neolithic. 
3. The workmanship is different from that on undoubted neolithic 
implements. 
4. The deep porcellanous incrustation ; and 
5. The ancient and primitive appearance of the implements them- 
selves. 
NOTE ADDED IN THE PRESS. 
Since reading the foregoing Paper the author has found in the neighbourhood 
of Larne, in undisturbed boulder clay, an artificially-chipped object. He has also 
found another object, which he classes with the pear-shaped implements referred to 
in the Paper, having, as he believes, glacial scratching on an artificially-dressed 
surface. He has also found, not far from Larne, eleven feet down in gravel, 
capped by thirty feet of boulder clay, two flakes with well-marked bulbs of per- 
cussion, and several objects having the character of cores. The author exhibited 
some of these objects in illustration of a Paper read before the Anthropological 
Department of the British Association, in September, 1883; and further informa- 
tion regarding them will be communicated to the Academy at an early date. 
R. I. A, PROC., VOL. II., SER. II.—POL, LIT, AND ANTIQ. 2B 
