PREHISTORIC MAN IN EGYPT AND SYRIA.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 372, 8 July 1884, Page 3

PREHISTORIC MAN IN EGYPT AND SYRIA.

_!__: «■ The following account will be of local interest in view of recent i n these columns :•£■*' A gala meeting was held by the Victoria Philosophical Institute of London in the second week in May, at -which its- members gave a worthy welcome to Vice-Chancellor Pawson, C.M.G., of M'Gill Vuirevkitj) Montreal, at, whose instance the British AssocJatioii yisits Canada, this year. ' The .Society "of ' Arts kindly lent its premises for the 'occasion, and its greet .theatre was crowded in erery part ioug before the hour S meeting. The chair w,as . tak<£ byi Sir feS3kg?G.aka., X.C.8., F. 8.5., who

•'. — after the new. members had been announced I by Captain F. Petrie, the secretary—^welcomed Dr Dawson amid loud applause, and asked hir.» to deliver his address : It was on Prehistoric Man in Egjpt and Syria,' and, was illustrated by laTge diagrams, also flint implements and bones collected by Dr Dawaon himself on the spot during his winter tour in the Kast ; Professor floyd-Dawkini, ' F.R.S., kindly assisted in the classification of the bones. In dealing with his subject, Dr Dawson remarked th.it great interest attaches to any remains which, in countries historical^' so old, may indicate the residence of man before the dawn of history. In Egypt, nodules of flint are very abundant in the Eocene limestones, and, -where these have been wasted away, remain on the surface. In many places there is good evidence that the flint thus to be found everywhere | has bejen, and still is, used for the manufacture of flakes, knive-, and other implements. These, as is well known, were used for many I purposes by the ancient Egyptians, and in modern times gun-flints and strike-lights still continue to be made. The debris of worked .flints found on the surface is thus of little value as an indication of any flint-folk preceding the old T'gyptiane. It would be otherwise if flint implements could be found in the older gravels of the country. Some of these are of Pleistocene age, and belong to a period of partial submergence of the Nile Valley. Flint implements had been alleged j to be found in the-e gravels, but there seemed to be no good evidence to prove that i they are other than the chips broken by mechanical violence in. the removal of the gravel by torrential action. In the Lebanon, numerous caverns exist. These were divided into two classes, with reference to their origin ; some being water-cares or tunnels of subterranean rivers, others sea-cives, excavated by the waves when the country was at a lower level than at present. Both kinds have been occupied by man, and some j of them- undoubtedly at a time anterior to the Phoenician occupation of the country, and even at a time when the animal inhabitants' and geographical features of the region were different from those of the present day. They, were thus of various ages, ranging i-rr-iJin) the post- Glacial or Antidilnvian period to the time of the . Phoenician occupation. Dr Dawson tbm remarked that many geologists' in ,<these days had an aversion to using the word ' Antediluvian, 1 on account of the nature o£ the work which, in years now gone by, unlearned people had attributed to the Flood described in Scripture, but as the aversion to the use of that word was, he thought, not called for in these days,' he hoped it would pass away. Speaking as a geologist, from a purely geological point of view, and from a thorough examination of the country aronnrl, there was no doubt but what there was conclusive evidence that between the time of the first occupation of these caves by men — and they were men of a splendid physique— and the appearance of the early Phoenician inhabitants of the land, there had been a vast submergence of land, and a great catastrophe, aye, a stupendous one,: in which even the Mediterranean bad been altered from a small sea to its present size. In illustration of this, the caverns at the Pass of Nuhr.ol.Eelb and at Ant Elias were described in some detail, and also, in connection with these, the occurrence »f flint implements on the surface of modern sandstones at the Cape or Ras near Beyrout ; these last were probably of much less antiquity than those of the more ancient caverns. A discussion ensued, which was taken part in by a number of distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society, incladiu" Sir H. Barklv, F.R.S. ; Professors Wiltshire. F.R.S. ; Wnrrington Smyth, F.R.S. ; Rupert Jones, F.R.S. ; Colonel Hersuhel, F.R.S., the talented sou of the late Sir John Herschel ; Dr Eae, F.R.S., the Arctic explorer ; Dr Dawson, F.R.S. ; Mr D. Howurd, the vicepresident of the Chemical Institute, and other geologists.