OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 
979 
Egypt may not have felt the full effects of the great earth movements which told 
upon the lands to the westward, it would appear not to have altogether escaped. 
As the rate at which the Nile sediment accumulated admits of a rough appi'oxima- 
tion, we may in this way possibly get a clue to the date w^hen this change of level 
took place, and though Mr. Hoener’s estimate of 13,500 years* * * § cannot claim entire 
reliance, it may serve as a starting point subject to correction.t A secular addition 
of sediment, uniform throughout, cannot be admitted, for as the sediment results 
from the persistent seasonal rains of the Abyssinian uplands, the quantity of sedi¬ 
ment carried down annuall}^ must be a diminishing quantity in proportion as the 
rocks become gradually denuded and barer by the loss of surface and disintegrated 
soil. 
Judging by analogy, it is most probable that Paleolithic Man did exist in 
Egypt, for flint or chert implements of the precise ‘type of those found in the river 
drifts of the Thames and Somme Valleys have been found there, but apparently 
only on the surface. Sir John Lubbock | has discovered them on the hills and lower 
plateaux of the Nile Valley. Three pointed flint implements which he found at 
Abydos, and are stained chocolate colour, might be matched with specimens 
from the high-level gravels of St. Acheul. General Pitt-Pivers figures one of an 
elongated pointed shape, 4 inches in length, which was found on the surface near 
Koorneh. In the collection made by Professor H. W. Haynes, there are specimens 
of the long pointed form so common at Amiens, and in the British Museum there is 
another specimen of pointed type also common in the valley of the Somme. It was 
found by Mr, W. M. Flinders Petrie on the surface of the spur of a hill about 
200 feet above the Nile level, near Esneh, 18 miles south of Thebes.§ He describes 
it as river-worn and rolled. To me it, however, seems to have suffered more from 
sand- than river-wear, for although on one side the sharp angles are rounded off, and 
the surface of the flint has received a bright polish, on the other side the chipped 
surface retains its sharp angles and the flint its dull aspect. 
Another circumstance, which may be merely a coincidence, or may have a collateral 
bearing on the question, is that several of the animals which lived in the South of 
Europe prior to the time of the Rubble-drift and Ossiferous fissures, disappeared in 
that area after that event, whereas they survived in the Nile Valley to Historic times ; 
such, for example, are— 
Lion. Spotted Hyaena. Hippopotamus. 
Panther. Caffir Cat. African Elephant, 
* Op. cit., p. 74; and Lubbock’s ‘ Pre-liistoric Times,’ p. .320. 
t M. Moelot’s estimate, based on the growth of the delta of the Tiniere, gives 8000 to 11,000 years 
as the lapse of time since the commencement of the Neolithic epoch in Switzerland, thns agreeing 
approximately with the-age assigned by Mr. Hoener to the alluvium of the Nile. 
X ‘ Journ. Anthrop. Inst.,’ vol. 4, p. 215, 1874. 
§ ‘ Ten Years’ Diggings in Egypt,’ p. 79, 1892. 
6 I 2 
