Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/108

 one of the smaller caves, carefully examined by my friend Mr. J. K. Lord, the floor was covered to a considerable depth with a coating of impalpable dust, which, when disturbed, rose in suffocating clouds. On sifting this, numerous fragments of stone hammers and pieces of wood, some partially carbonized, but which had evidently been fashioned into tools, were found. The latter form segments of cylindrical blocks, with roughly conical points (that have evidently been shaped with a blunt or imperfectly cutting tool) with a thickened head, notched round underneath as if to receive a withe or cord. The head bears evident marks of having been subjected to repeated blows. Although only a single segment of any degree of perfection was found, there can be little doubt that these were used as mountings for the flint chisels employed by the ancient miners. Without something of the kind, it would be difficult to work with the flakes, owing to their tendency to break across when not struck fairly on the top.

The hammers found in the workings are mostly of a very rude kind ; in many cases rough natural fragments of dolorite, taken from the flow capping the adjacent hills, have been used, only a pair of holes on opposite sides, produced by the action of sand pressed upon the surface by the thumb and forefinger, being apparent. Some, however, show a little more work, having a groove, to receive a withe handle, cut round them, like the so-called Aztec hammers found in the aboriginal workings in the Lake Superior copper-mines. Most of them are broken at the ends, and can only be regarded as spoiled and waste tools. The same seems to be the case with the wooden fragments, many of which are partially carbonized, as though they had been used for making fires when no longer serviceable as tools ; and the same remark also applies to the flint flakes. The period over which the working of the mines of Wady Maghara extends, according to the evidence of the numerous hieroglyphic tablets covering the face of the cliff, as interpreted by Egyptologists, extends from the 3rd to the 13th Manethonian dynasties, corresponding to an interval of about 1600 years. As far as mining and stone- cutting are concerned, there does not appear to have been much progress during this time, the older tablets being much more perfectly sculptured than those of later date. The use of flints was continued up to the last, as is shown by a blank tablet, dressed smooth to receive an inscription, near the northern end of the workings, which was never finished. This has evidently been done with a flint tool, the proper face being obtained by the use of flakes of small size. The same sort of tools were used at Sarabut el Khadem, where the workings are of later date ; but there the hammers appear to be of a somewhat more advanced type.

That the mines of Wady Maghara were worked for turquoises, and not for copper-ores, may be assumed from the absence of all traces of slag-heaps like those of Nash. In the old town, on the hill dividing Wady Maghara from Ghenneh, a shot of copper was found in the bottom of a broken earthenware pot. This was probably accidental, and owing to the presence of a fragment of some easily