43 
Ordinary Meeting, December 14th, 1809. 
J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., &c., President, in the Chair. 
Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., &c., and 
Henry Clifton Sorby, F.R.S., F.G.S., were elected Honorary 
Members of the Society. 
Mr. Robert Routledge was elected an Ordinary Member. 
Mr. William Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., exhibited some old 
mining tools, brought over by Mr. Bauerman from the tur- 
quoise mines of the promontory of Sinai, consisting of a 
stone-hammer and rude splinters of flint. The turquoises 
occur in a bed of a quartzose mottled sandstone in Wady 
Sidreh and Wady Maghara, in joints running for the most 
part north and south. They were worked, according to the 
evidence of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the rock, by the 
Egyptians from the third to the thirteenth* of the dynasties 
mentioned by Manetho. In and around the workings there 
are still the tools with which they were carried on. 
Innumerable splinters of flint, with their points blunted and 
rounded by use ; stone-hammers, some of which are broken; 
and rounded pebbles with a concavity on either side caused 
by the friction of the thumb and finger charged with 
particles of sand, and segments of small wooden cylinders, 
lie together. The flint flakes exactly coincide with the 
grooves in the rock made in the excavation, and evidently 
have been blunted by such use. The fragments of wooden 
cylinders are believed by Mr. Bauerman to have been por- 
tions of the sockets into which the flakes were fitted. The 
round pebbles were probably used for driving the rude 
chisel formed by the flint inserted into the wooden socket, 
while the large stone-hammers were used for breaking up 
the rock. There was no evidence that metal of any kind 
was used in the work, Mr. Bauerman also satisfied himself 
that the hieroglyphs were cut with implements similar to 
those used in the mining. This discovery is very important, 
because it opens up the question as to what tools the 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Society. — Vol. IX. — No. 6. — Session 1869-70. 
