Prehistoric Man in Egypt and Syria.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 60, 26 July 1884, Page 5

Prehistoric Man in Egypt and Syria.

At a meeting of the Victoria Philosophical Institute of London in the .second week in May, Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, delivered an address on " Prehistoric Man in Egypt and Syria." In dealing Avith his subject, Dr. Dawson remarked that, great interest attaches to any remains which, in countries historically 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 been, and still is, nsed for the manufacture of flakes, knives, and other implements. These, as is well known, were used for many 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 Egyptians. 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 to be found in these gravels, but there seemed to be no good evidence to prove that 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 the origin ; some being water-caves or tunnels of subterranean rivers, others sea- caves, excavated by the waves when the country was at a lower level than at present. Both kinds have been occupied by man, and some 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 from the post-Glacial or Antediluvian period to the time of the Phoenician occupation. Dr. Dawson then remarked that many geologists in these days had an aversion to using the word "Antidiluvian," on account of the nature of 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 around, there was no doubt but that there was conclusive evidence that between the the time of the first occupation of these caves by men — and they were men of a splendid physique— and the appearance of the eai'ly 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 had been altered from a small sea to its present size. In illustration of this the caverns at the Pass of Nahr-el-Kelb and at Ant Elias were described in some detail, and also, in connection with these, the occurrence of flint implements on the surface of modern sandstones at the Cape or Has near Beyrout ; these last were probably of much less antiquity than those ot tho more ancient caverns.