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NOTE ON A FIRE-FLINT OF STRANDLOOPER ORIGIN. 
By John Hewitt. 
(With Plate I.) 
In his important work on the Stone Ages of South Africa, Dr. 
Peringuey described a remarkable hafted stone implement, found in one of 
the Outeniqua Caves. He placed the type in his group of South African 
Neolithic implements, for, having been found along with the skeleton of one 
of the aboriginal cave-dwellers, it evidently belonged to that race of people 
variously known as Strandloopers, Coastal Bushmen or Primitive Hottentots. 
It is the object of these few notes to give further records of the same 
type of implement, and to suggest a mode of use. 
The earliest reference to the above-mentioned specimen is found in the 
record of the monthly meeting of the South African Philosophical Society for 
September, 1892, which reads as follows : " Mr. Peringuey exhibited a stone 
implement with wooden handle, which was found in a Bushman or 
Hottentot grave near George. The handle had been attached with some 
kind of cement, and the implement had been used as a hand weapon." At 
the December meeting of the Society another note on the same specimen 
was contributed by Dr. Marloth. His report was as follows : " He had 
examined the stone implement, and found that the cement used in con- 
necting the handle to the head consisted of resin — probably fine resin and 
chalk. He had also found starch grains from wheat and rice, which led him 
to conclude that the natives must have used wheat and rice, and therefore 
this cement must have been made after the arrival of white men in South 
Africa." 
The account of the discovery by Mr. R. E. Dumbleton, as given in Dr. 
Peringuey's monograph, contains the following: "On coming to the head 
(of a human skeleton) I discovered immediately in front of the face two 
tortoise shells, etc. etc. With these there was the lumbar vertebra of a 
large ruminant, several flint scrapers, and also a peculiar instrument con- 
sisting of a piece of flint fixed in gum-cement, in which was inserted 
a piece of wood about 4 in. long, serving as handle. The latter 
unfortunately was perfectly rotten and broke off short." 
Another example of this implement but in better state of preservation, 
has been in the Albany Museum for some years, and a short description was 
