25 
found every where the evidence of the wide diffusion of the use of 
flint implements in historic times. Still the decisive proof was wanting 
that the men by whom these implements were used, found in deep 
seated beds of gravel, had been the contemporaries of the mammoth 
and the extinct rhinoceros. The antiquity of the beds was denied; the 
implements were alleged to have been forged by the workmen or to be 
the result of accidental fractures. The discovery of similar remains in 
the same beds at St. Acheul, near Amiens, furnished a strong corrobo¬ 
ration of M. de Perthes’ opinions; many additional specimens were 
brought to light by the excavations for the Northern railway, and he 
gradually obtained a few converts. In 1859 Dr. Falconer, who had been 
engaged in exploring the cave at Brixham, where flint implements 
were found in conjunction with human bones, and those of extinct 
animals, visited Abbeville, and being himself convinced, induced 
many other eminent English geologists to visit Amiens and Abbeville. 
They have found specimens under circumstances which preclude mis¬ 
take or forgery, and have been unanimous in concluding that the flint 
hatchets are really works of human art, and that the race by whom 
they were used were the contemporaries of the extinct Pachydermata, 
with whose remains the implements are associated. 
Nov. 4.—The Rev. J. Kenrick read a paper on some Waxed 
Tablets recently discovered in the gold mines of Transylvania, of which 
he exhibited photographs. 
In the year 1842 Professor Massmann of Munich published, with a 
learned commentary, facsimiles of some waxed tablets with Latin 
inscriptions, which had been discovered in Transylv^ania in 1788. Their 
genuineness had been disputed, and in particular Sir F. Madden had 
pronounced two tablets ofiered for sale to the British Museum, and 
supposed to be the same as these, to be forgeries. By others they had 
been received as genuine. Reasons were produced by the author of 
the paper in favour of their genuineness, of which this additional 
discovery furnished a confirmation. 
These waxed tablets correspond with the known custom of the 
Romans to use a thin board of wood coated with wax, for the purpose 
of writing on them with a stylus of bronze. They are written in a cur¬ 
sive Roman hand and are the only specimens extant of that character. 
According to Massmann they exhibit in duplicate a notice from the 
manager of a burial club, that the funds in his hands were exhausted ; 
and that no further payments could be made. The date is ascertained, 
by the mention of Lucius Yerus and Quadratus as consuls, to be the 
