FURTHER NOTES ON CHIPPED FLINTS. 255 



This plateau gravel is conspicuously seen on the summit of 

 the sand cliffs that abut on the left bank of the Irrawaddy at 

 Yenangyoung, and is met with at other points inland. A new 

 cart-road between Yenangyoung and Thittabwe (some two or 

 three miles further down the river) is cut for part of the way 

 through this gravel, and a good section is thus exposed. 



As mentioned by Dr. Noetling, this gravel is chiefly composed 

 of large pieces of rounded quartz, but an examination of it proved 

 that it contains also fairly numerous lumps of chert, and is un- 

 doubtedly the source from which the men who produced the 

 chips obtained their supply. The ground where the gravel exists 

 is naturally hard and unpleasant to sit upon, being composed of 

 large rounded stones, and it is clear that chert was obtained from 

 the gravel, taken a short distance away to where the ground is 

 soft and grassy, and there chipped up. At one place, not far 

 away, I found a small collection of stones, among them several 

 pieces of chert, and numerous chips of the latter, while a search 

 in any direction resulted in the discovery of chips. So far from 

 being confined to the neighbourhood of the place where Dr. 

 Noetling found his, or to the places where the ferruginous con- 

 glomerate outcrops on the plateau, my experience was that it is 

 impossible to walk anywhere about the oil-field, either inside or 

 outside of the circumscribing band of conglomerate, without, 

 sooner or later, finding these chips, sometimes few and far 

 between, and sometimes in little bunches. Being for the most 

 part merely fragments, while even the deliberately worked scrapers 

 and other implements that are to be found are too inconspicuous 

 to attract ordinary attention, they have remained unnoticed, and 

 can be picked up among the oil-wells, lying where they have 

 doubtless lain since they were made. One symmetrically shaped 

 chip, which has the appearance of a diminutive scraper, or might 

 be a roughly finished arrow-head, I picked up within fifty yards 

 of the bungalow of the manager of the Burma Oil Company, as 

 I was on my way to breakfast with him. Being a shrewd man of 

 business, and an American, he was naturally unable to understand 

 that I was only searching for stone implements, and was not 

 spying out the land with a view to oil. 



It was certainly a curious and instructive commentary on the 

 progress of the world to be picking up the rough stone imple- 



