springs seem to have weathered much more rapidly than elsewhere."

It is difficult to speak with any degree of authority of a deposit which one has not personally inspected, but from the tenor of the letter here given, which is in answer to direct questions sent by me, as well as from the examination of the implements, I am led to conclude, until further investigations disprove my conclusions, that the Cradock deposits imply a contemporaneity between the large bouchers and the small or only comparatively large scraper-knives quite equal to that of the Nooitgedacht deposit. In one case there were no "bushman" implements found together with these palæoliths; while in another the latter were found on the fringe of the "bushman" deposit, which is almost wholly confined to the river-bank.

We have thus probably a repetition of an instance of denudation by rain-wash, the same as in the Stellenbosch, Simondium, and other sites, only that at Cradock the smaller implements have not been carried away, or only partly so, into the streams or rivers.

THE "NOOITGEDACHT AND BARKLY WEST DEPOSITS.

At a place called "Nooitgedacht," close to the Vaal River, in what is called here the "dry diggings" for diamonds, there have been found scraper-knives, and small and large bouchers made mostly of diabasic rocks, all mixed together.

This find is of very great interest, as showing more conclusively, perhaps, than even the Tyumi River deposit, that knives and scrapers of the Mousterian type were made or used by the same people who manufactured the large bouchers of the chelleanmousterian form.

Miss Wilman who sent me some of these implements, so abraded that identification was difficult, and whom I had asked to ascertain if there were old or recent river-terraces near the deposit, wrote as follows:

"The Nooitgedacht implements, big and small, all occur together in a bed of gravel that is being worked on the water's edge of the river (Vaal). In fact, the diggers have been flooded out at times.

"The diggers have removed the overlying sand at A and are clearing out the gravel at B for sifting and sorting. All the implements sent come from B. This, then, is the lowest terrace, and * A former assistant of this Museum, and now in charge of the McGregor's Memorial Museum at Kimberley.

it rises to a couple of hundred feet and has quite large trees growing upon it. In the sand are no implements, but lying all over the surface are some of the same type, exactly as those found in B. Large implements are not common on the surface, and some are

FIG. 5.-A-Fine sand. B-Gravel, diamond bearing, consisting almost entirely of rolled agates, &c., wherein are the large and small implements.

quite unlike the water-worn rocks that they accompany, and I am convinced that while some are undoubted implements, others were implements in the making."

The pieces received from Miss Wilman are almost smooth, with the angles and facets quite obliterated. Many are tongue-shaped, and others more or less regularly almond-shaped. The examples represented in Pl. IX., Figs. 57 to 60, which were found at Barkly West, not far from Nooitgedacht, give a good idea of their appearance, though some are even more amorphous.

In common with many collectors who pick specimens to oblige friends, Mr. A. du Toit, of the Cape Geological Survey, who presented these last-mentioned examples, left many the conditions of which through abrasion made him doubtful as to their being artefacts. On the whole, these bouchers show traces of superior workmanship, most of them having been "knapped" on either side. Some are of the unusually large "shard" form trimmed only on one face, and it is to these that Miss Wilman alluded as being in the making.* Several of the smaller, about 100 mm. in length, are well finished, others not; one still retains its wedge shape. The cleavers are easily recognisable, and round the butt of one there is a very irregular depression that, if not accidental, might make hafting by ligatures possible. The cleavers of Pl. VIII., Figs. 52 to 56, met not far from Nooitgedacht, are of the same type.

As for the scraper-knives, their resemblance to similar tools found so commonly all over South Africa is indeed extreme. I have selected a few types for illustration (Pl. XIII., Fig. 105).

I am, unfortunately, debarred from giving in this modest paper illustrations of tools of the same technique found in mid-Europe or England, but I should like to call the attention of antiquarians to the extreme likeness of No. 7 of Fig. 105, to one of the famous

* One sent me is 260 mm. long, and weighs 4 lbs. 4 oz.

"Micoque" lanciform knife-scrapers, attributed to the ChelleanAcheulean; of that of No. 4 of the same Fig. to the "Chatelperron scraper-knives, &c.

The importance of the Nooitgedacht deposit is that the scraperknives and bouchers are found together, all bearing clear proofs that they have been subjected at one time to the same process of abrasion, and we are therefore justified in arriving at the conclusion that the two types of implements, the boucher and scraper, were artefacts of the same makers.

But when we try to assign a geological date not only to these relics, but also to similar ones from the deposits of the Vaal River, we are confronted with the same difficulties as in the case of the other South African deposits.

In this Nooitgedacht gravel-bed numerous potsherds were found associated with the implements. One piece, now in the Collection, is of moderately close texture; the greatest thickness is 8 mm. ; the edges of the fracture are not abraded in the least, and the outside glaze is wonderfully well preserved. There is nothing to differentiate it from the pottery made by "Topnaar" Hottentots (vulgo "Strand Loopers ").

This pottery must have been deposited accidentally in the gravelbed before the latter was covered by the layer of sand, but it points also to the implements having been deposited there in their already abraded condition, because the evidence of the unabraded potsherds preclude the possibility of the implements having been water-worn in their distinctive manner in that particular cul-de-sac, or "pot-hole."

They must, therefore, have been brought down with alluvium, rom higher levels, from river-terraces. We shall see what evidence is obtainable on that point; but one must not forget that specimens found in the gravels of the Vaal River must have been left there in the same worn condition as when deposited; that is to say, worn by gravels in the process of formation.

A close examination of some of the Nooitgedacht pieces reveals traces still fairly visible of the pitting that long-prolonged eolian agencies impart to diabasic implements. This is very important. It implies that the paleoliths were already of great antiquity before being subjected to the fluviatile attrition.

Messrs. J. P. Johnson and R. B. Young, in a paper read before the Geological Society of South Africa,* state that "all along the

"The Relation of the Ancient Deposits of the Vaal River to the Paleolithic Period of South Africa" (IX., 1906), p. 53.

Vaal River are two well-defined terraces of gravel, the longer one usually being covered with a considerable thickness of loam." Mr. J. P. Johnson in a subsequent publication* qualifies this statement.

"All along the Vaal River there are well-defined terraces. There are usually two: the upper and older one consisting of a thick bed of gravel; the lower and newer one being, as a rule, a stratum of gravelly detritus lying at the base of a varying thickness of alluvial loam."

The two writers above quoted, when speaking of the Barkly deposit and mentioning the extraordinary abundance in it of the typical paleolithic implements, "all but a very few equally rolled being practically reduced to pebbles," state, inter alia: "At Barkly, between the bridge and the village, the upper terrace is well exposed in the old diggings. It lies at the foot of a ridge of hills, hence the talus element is predominant, though the river gravel is in evidence throughout."

They found, together with the rolled bouchers, "a few sharp implements which led them to conclude that that deposit consists of two distinct series, the one probably older, the other perhaps contemporaneous with, perhaps newer than the deposits." Unfortunately, these "sharp" implements are not figured, and it is thus impossible to traverse this conclusion, but we possess a good many pieces from Barkly and its near neighbourhood. I have also seen a good many besides those we own, and I would certainly not differentiate respecting the contemporaneity of a "sharp" implement, like Fig. 53, of Pl. VIII., a sharply wedged tool, Fig. 56, or an obtuse boucher like Figs. 57 or 58 of Pl. IX.

Mr. A. L. du Toit, of the Cape Colony Geological Survey, who has surveyed this very district, was kind enough, at my request, to investigate this deposit, and this is what he wrote to me, accompanying his remarks with the following diagram given on next page.

"There are several old river-terraces in the neighbourhood of Barkly, one immediately above the present river-bed, and a second from 30 to 40 feet above it as recorded by Messrs. Johnson and Young; this higher terrace is indicated at A on the accompanying Fig. At B there is a gap in the hills through which a loop of

The Stone Implements of South Africa, 1908.

In the Bloemfontein Museum are three specimens found 40 feet deep in the old course of the Vaal River. Two are of the usual worn boucher-type, 100115 mm. in length; the third is a small circular chip 22 mm. at its greatest length.

the Vaal River very probably flowed in former times, C then being an island.

"Traces of still older gravels are found on the tops of the ridges C and D about 100 feet higher up; but to the north this upper terrace is continuous and well developed, but does not appear to carry any large implements. The gravels at Riverton (west bank) and Warrenton seem similarly to be without implements.

"This middle terrace at Barkly, which therefore corresponds to the upper' of the two authors quoted, carries many rolled implements, and at the point marked A they have been brought up in thousands in the course of sinking shafts to reach the diamond-bearing gravel. Among the inclusions of diabase, some only slightly rolled others very well rounded, are numerous large, well-shaped implements considerably water-worn, their abundance at this one spot being most remarkable.

"It seems most likely that the implements were manufactured on the slopes of the little hill C, and that they gravitated down into the river at A. At the time when this terrace was being formed there would probably be an eddy at A where the two branches of the river reunited, and this might account for their extremely rolled condition and possibly for their concentration at this point."

THE GRIQUALAND WEST JASPER IMPLEMENTS, and THE TYUMI RIVER DEPOSIT.

The Griqualand brown, yellow, or whitish jasper implements have a certain aspect of their own, perhaps due to the material