288 [Proc. B. N. F. C, 



has been referred to at the British Association, and Royal Irish 

 Academy, in papers dealing with our Antrim worked flints, 

 leaving a vague impression that the workers of the flints and 

 the mammoth were contemporary. Mr. Gray said that these 

 loose, careless statements were very reprehensible in any com- 

 munication intended for the use of the members of the Royal 

 Irish Academy, or even for a provincial society. As another 

 example, Mr. Gray referred to Mr. Knowles, of Ballymena, who 

 had contributed largely to many of our leading scientific 

 societies. In a recent paper on the Flint Implements of the 

 raised beaches, published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish 

 Academy, Mr. Knowles says — " As far as I am aware, all the 

 objects which have been hitherto found in the raised beaches 

 and described as implements were in reality only flakes." In 

 making this loose statement, Mr. Knowles overlooked the fact 

 that so far back as 1869, years before Mr. Knowles commenced 

 writing for the scientific world, Mr. J. H. Staples read a paper 

 before the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club on the Flaked, 

 Chipped, and Worked Flints to be found in the gravels in the 

 neighbourhood of Holywood, County Down. In this com- 

 munication Mr. Staples described " rudely-chipped celts, spear 

 heads, and certain oval-shaped weapons " " of the same type as 

 those from the Somme Valley in France, and different English 

 gravels." In addition, Mr. Gray read a paper at the Belfast 

 meeting of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Society of 

 Ireland in 1879, which has been published in the Society's 

 Journal, and this paper describes and figures '' roughly-chipped 

 unpolished flint celts, having all the characters of extreme age," 

 and " implements that approach nearest the Palaeolithic forms 

 of England and the Continent," all of which were from the 

 raised beach gravels. Mr. Gray's published papers, moreover, 

 contain a tabulated statement showing the distribution of the 

 implements at eight raised beach stations ; the rough flint 

 celts of Palaeolithic type were found at five stations. Again, 

 Mr. Knowles, in describing the geological character of the 

 raised beach gravels at Larne and other parts of the North-East 



