Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/388

328 spot or not. Beyond some rolled fragments of bone we found nothing.

On the third day (Christmas Day) we started on the same route, but stopped short at the conglomerate on the western side, and examined it for a considerable distance in both a northerly and southerly direction, especially where it outcrops by the side of the road leading north into Bene village. Again we found no signs of flints. Some rolled fragments of bone were all that had up to now rewarded our efforts, though we had examined a considerable portion of the bed in different localities. We found the nature of the conglomerate to differ in different places, as noted by Dr. Noetling at p. 59 of the 'Memoirs,' vol. xxvii. part 2, where he says:—"At some places it is a rather incoherent agglomerate of irregularly shaped concretions of a ferruginous clay, at others it contains numerous quartz pebbles cemented by a hard conglomerate sandstone, at others again it is an earthy iron ore of a bright red colour." But, whatever the nature of the conglomerate, it was apparent that had any foreign substance, such as flint chips, been exposed on its surface, or lying out on the numerous slopes where the detritus of the bed was spread out, as if on purpose, we must have found them, at any rate, as easily as we found the numerous fragments of bone.

On the fourth and last day of our visit we determined to make an effort to locate No. 49 precisely, in case there might be some quite local feature which did not exist elsewhere, and we therefore crossed the oil-field, as on the second day, and, on coming to the eastern side, sent the cart up on to the plateau beyond, with instructions to turn southwards, following the course of the ravine, and stop at about the place where we calculated that it would be opposite No. 49; while we also went southwards, but kept down in the ravine, searching the conglomerate, and the slopes below it. By breakfast-time we had joined up our first and second days' searches, and had found nothing beyond the usual rolled fragments and a few pieces of a tooth, apparently Aceratherium perimense. Above the conglomerate, however, we found a bed composed of innumerable shells of Batissa crawfurdi, such as is mentioned by Dr. Noetling as occurring near where he found the flints. We both agreed, judging from our present position and distance from Minlin Hill,