Vol. 65.] NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE VICTORIA FALLS. 405 



The sharpness of the angles of many of the worked stones gives 

 the impression that the chipping can be of no great age, and there 

 is good reason for believing that the use of stone tools has gone on 

 in this part of Africa, as farther south, down to quite recent times. 

 But it is remarkable that, while a few stones polished after being 

 artificially worked have had the angles of the chipping worn rough 

 and blunt, none of the specimens that came under my notice showed 

 a polished surface chipped away by undoubted artificial working. 



Some of the artificially-worked specimens of the local quartzite 

 are associated with gravel belonging to the Maramba River and to 

 spruits coming down the same tributary valley ; others appear to 

 have been fashioned from rough unrolled quartzite locally derived, 

 and some from stones which may have belonged to the scanty 

 gravel of the Zambesi : this, however, is no evidence of antiquity, 

 as they may have been fashioned from stones lying on the surface 

 at any time down to the present. The supposition that implements, 

 or artificially-worked stones, have been found embedded in a deposit 

 which can be considered a gravel of the Zambesi within the area 

 that came under my notice appears baseless : nor is there any 

 ground for supposing that those found on both sides of the gorge 

 on the rocky surface of the old Zambesi Valley, 400 feet above the 

 present level of the river, were there when the Zambesi was flowing 

 at that level before the gorge was eroded. The presumption seems- 

 to be that the implements were fashioned from unworked stones 

 found then, as now, on the floor of the old valley since the gorge 

 was carved out. 



The clue to the age of the implements will probably be found in 

 the Maramba Valley, when the gravel and the deposits now being 

 dug for brick-making are properly studied. It could be seen from 

 the photographs exhibited at the meeting that tropical Rhodesia can 

 show river-deposits that would not discredit an English river. 



Discussion. 



Mr. G. W. Lampltjgh complimented the Author on the good use 

 that he had made of his opportunities in the Zambesi Valley. The 

 distribution of the stone implements on the borders of the gorge 

 below the Falls appeared to the speaker to indicate that in some 

 cases they had been transported by the Zambesi when it flowed at 

 plateau-level ; but the geological evidence for their high antiquity 

 was, after all, suggestive rather than conclusive. 



Until proof of the detrital volcanic character of the white rock 

 described by the Author was forthcoming, the application to it of 

 the term ' tuff' was hardly justified. The description of the flood 

 in the Maramba was interesting, as showing how the bed of a main 

 river may be channelled by a tributary — the reverse of ' hanging- 

 valley ' conditions, when, as in this case, the floods of the streams 

 occur at the low-water stage of the river. 



Q. J. G. S. No. 259. 2e 



