This new view seems to be much sounder and more probable than the old one, maintained by Flinders Petrie and Blanckenhorn, according to which the high plateau was the home of man in Palæolithic times, when the rainfall, as shown by the valley erosion and waterfalls, must have caused an abundant vegetation on the plateau, where man could live and hunt his game.[1] Were this so, it is patent that the Palæolithic flints could not have been found on the desert surface as they are. Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell, of the Geological Survey of Egypt, to whom we are indebted for the promulgation of the more modern and probable view, says: “Is it certain that the high plateau was then clothed with forests? What evidence is there to show that it differed in any important respect from its present aspect? And if, as I suggest, desert conditions obtained then as now, and man merely worked his flints along the edges of the plateaus overlooking the Nile valley, I see no reason why flint implements, dating even from Palæolithic times should not in favourable cases still be found in the spots where they were left, surrounded by the flakes struck off in manufacture. On the flat plateaus the occasional rains which fall--once in three or four years--can effect but little transport of material, and merely lower the general level by dissolving the underlying limestone, so that the plateau surface is left with a coating of nodules and blocks of insoluble flint and chert. Flint implements might thus be expected to remain in many localities for indefinite periods, but they would certainly become more or less ‘patinated,’ pitted on the surface, and rounded at the angles after long exposure to heat, cold, and blown sand.” This is exactly the case of the Palæolithic flint tools from the desert plateau. [1] Petrie, _Nagada and Ballas_, p. 49. [Illustration: 012.jpg UPPER DESERT PLATEAU, WHERE PALEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS ARE FOUND, Thebes: 1,400 leet above the Nile.]