NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



the shingle. It differs from those presented by Mr. Leech to the Jermyn 

 Street Museum, which are from the same locality, in being smaller, much 

 less pointed, and natter at the base. Its length must have been 5 inches, 

 and its greatest breadth 3f inches, exactly corresponding to the oval shape 

 and size of the Amiens flint presented by Mr. Prestwich to the same mu- 

 seum. The edges are much fractured, either from use or water-rolling, 

 probably both. Geo. J. Strong. 



Queen's Printing Office. 



Phosphorus in Nature. — This element is found in minute quantities 

 almost everywhere in nature ; it is an essential constituent of fertile soils, 

 and of all living organisms. But people have been rather puzzled to ac- 

 count for the mountains of apatite (crystalline phosphate of lime) which 

 have already been found in one or two parts of Europe, and which may 

 exist in other quarters of the globe. We quote the explanation in Dr. 

 Hofmann's E-eport of the Chemical Products and Processes in Section A 

 of the International Exhibition : — " Large masses of phosphorus are, in the 

 course of geological revolutions extending over vast periods of time, re- 

 stored from the organic reigns of nature to the mineral kingdom by the 

 slow process of fossilization, whereby vegetal tissues are gradually trans- 

 formed into peat, lignite, and coal ; and animal tissues are petrified 

 into coprolites, which, in course of time, yield crystalline apatite." And 

 then : — "After lying locked up and motionless in these forms for indefi- 

 nite periods, phosphorus, by further geological movements, becomes again 

 exposed to its natural solvents, water and carbonic acid, and is thus re- 

 stored to active service in the organisms of plants and the lower animals, 

 through which it passes, to complete the mighty cycle of its movements, 

 into the blood and tissue of the human frame. While circulating thus, 

 age after age, through the three kingdoms of nature, phosphorus is never 

 for a moment free. It is throughout retained in combination with oxygen 

 and with the earthy or alkaline metals, for which its attraction is intense." 



Traditions of the Deluge and of the Unity of Origin of Man. 

 ■ — The subject of traditions was brought under discussion at a late meeting 

 of the Ethnological Society, by a paper by the Rev. Mr. Farrar, who in 

 general terms objected to the race-values, as well as the antiquity of tradi- 

 tions. One point is, however, in a geological aspect, I think, worthy of ex- 

 amination. I am under the impression that the tradition of a universal 

 deluge, and of the descent of mankind from a single pair, is characteristic 

 of the Caucasian races. Now the glacial era was seemingly inaugurated 

 with unequalled copious rains, and passed away as a geological age in a 

 multitude of debacles, seemingly from the melting of the vast quantities of 

 snow and ice accumulated during that intensely cold period. The relics of 

 man are found fossil in the deposits of at least the close of this period, and 

 therefore primitive man would have been at least an eye-witness of the 

 later debacles, if not of the inaugurating rains. To get out of the Gorilla- 

 origin theory for a time, and to look justly at facts, we find the oldest fossil 

 human skull — the Engis — belonging to the Caucasian or European type. 

 If, then, the Caucasian peoples should be proved to be the only original 

 preservers of the tradition of the deluge and single- pair parents of the 

 human race, would it not be very confirmatory presumption in favour 

 of the greater antiquity of European man, than of men of other species ? 

 We have nowhere got a fossil negro, and negroes have no traditions of 

 these two popularly-believed events. If European man's antiquity ex- 

 tended to the debacles which closed the glacial age, there would be an ori- 



