196 R. Bruce Foote — Bemarks on Mr. BalVs Note. [Nov. 



Surely Mr. Ball cannot be in earnest when he writes of a paper 

 published in the Annual Volume of a great Archfeological Congress like 

 that of Norwich, and of a letter in the pages of the Geological Maga- 

 zine, as not being published in distinct and accessible forms. In what 

 publications could they have appeared more fitting ? 



4. The last of my cJiarges Mr. Ball has in his note passed hy in 

 silence ! ! ! I referred to the collection of palaeolithic and neolithic imple- 

 ments I exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. The collection 

 contained about a dozen neolithic celts, besides corn-crushers, mealing- 

 stones and pounders, all distinctly labelled and shown conspicuously in 

 the Indian Gallery. 



Believing Mr. Ball to be much interested in such antiquities, and 

 being justly rather proud of my collection, I showed it him myself shortly 

 after his arrival in Vienna. After my departure for India the collection 

 remained till the close of the Exhibition in the charge of my friend 

 Dr. Wm. King (the present Director of the Geological Survey of India), 

 so that Mr. Ball had some four months' time in Vienna in which to 

 examine the specimens more closely had it so pleased him. But not only 

 this, the collection which I presented to the Geological Museum in Calcutta 

 was on show there for many years after : here again, however, Mr. Ball 

 ignored, or overlooked, the neolithic specimens, and worked out his 

 startling theory based on the imaginary occurrence of only one celt 

 found in Coorg. 



That Mr. Ball's paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Aca- 

 demy did not become known to me for six years after its publication I 

 much regret, but it was nothing remarkable, as that gentleman must 

 himself know after a lengthened residence in India. It is impossible 

 for a private individual with limited means to take in every scientific 

 serial going, however much he might wish so to do. The publication 

 was one I never saw, and no one drew my attention to Mr. Ball's paper. 

 I regret the fact most certainly, but cannot take any blame to myself 

 about it. The copy of his paper he sent me I never received, and he 

 never asked me, or wrote to me, for any information about South 

 Indian prehistorics ; had he done so, I could, even as early as 1878, have 

 given him so many facts bearing on the distribution of neolithic imple- 

 ments, that he would probably have been saved committing himself to 

 his ill-founded theory regarding the supposed low state of develope- 

 ment of the Dravidian tribes in South India. 



Mr. Ball is angry with me and holds that I am the chief offender in 

 the whole matter, because I did not long since write and point out his 

 omission to notice the priority of my first celt. I ought perhaps to have 

 done so, and certainly should have, had it occurred to me that such a 



1 



