So far as relates to the method of production of implements formed of silicious materials, there can be no doubt that the manufacture of gun-flints, which, notwithstanding the introduction of percussion-caps, is still carried on to some extent both in this and in neighbouring countries, is that best calculated to afford instruction. The principal place in England where the gun-flint manufacture is now carried on, is Brandon, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, where I have witnessed the process. I have also seen the manufacture at Icklingham, in Suffolk, where thirty years ago, gun-flint factories existed, which have now I believe {15} been closed. They were also formerly manufactured in small numbers at Catton, near Norwich. At Brandon, in 1868, I was informed that upwards of twenty workmen were employed, who were capable of producing among them from 200,000 to 250,000 gun-flints per week. These were destined almost entirely for exportation, principally to Africa. On July 18th, 1890, the Daily News [55] gave the number of workmen at Brandon as thirty-five.

Some other sites of the gun-flint manufacture in former times are mentioned by Mr. Skertchly, as for instance, Clarendon near Salisbury; Gray’s Thurrock, Essex; Beer Head, Devon; and Glasgow; besides several places in Norfolk and Suffolk.

In France the manufacture of gun-flints is still carried on in the Department of Loir et Cher, [56] and various other localities are recorded by Mr. Skertchly. [57]

In proof of the antiquity of the use of flint as a means of producing fire, I need hardly quote the ingenious derivation of the word Silex as given by Vincent of Beauvais:—“Silex est lapis durus, sic dictus eò quod ex eo ignis exiliat.” [58] But before iron was known as a metal, it would appear that flint was in use as a fire-producing agent in combination with blocks of iron pyrites (sulphide of iron) instead of steel. Nodules of this substance have been found in both French and Belgian bone-caves belonging to an extremely remote period; while, as belonging to Neolithic times, to say nothing of discoveries in this country, which will subsequently be mentioned, part of a nodule of pyrites may be cited which was found in the Lake settlement of Robenhausen, and had apparently been thus used. [59] In our own days, this method of obtaining fire has been observed among savages in Tierra del Fuego, and among the Eskimos of Smith’s Sound. [60] The {16} Fuegian tinder, like the modern German and ancient Roman, consists of dried fungus, which when lighted is wrapped in a ball of dried grass and whirled round the head till it bursts into flames. Achates, as will shortly be seen, is described by Virgil as following the same method.

The name of pyrites (from πῦρ) is itself sufficient evidence of the purpose to which this mineral was applied in early times, and the same stone was used as the fire-giving agent in the guns with the form of lock known as the wheel-lock. Pliny [61] speaks of a certain sort of pyrites, “plurimum habens ignis, quos vivos appellamus, et ponderosissimi sunt.” These, as his translator, Holland, says, “bee most necessary for the espialls belonging unto a campe, for if they strike them either with an yron spike or another stone they will cast forth sparks of fire, which lighting upon matches dipt in brimstone (sulphuratis) drie puff’s (fungis) or leaves, will cause them to catch fire sooner than a man can say the word.”

Pliny also [62] informs us that it was Pyrodes, the son of Cilix, who first devised the way to strike fire out of flint—a myth which seems to point to the use of silex and pyrites rather than of steel. The Jews on their return to Jerusalem, under Judas Maccabæus, “made another altar and striking stones they took fire out of them and offered a sacrifice.” [63] How soon pyrites was, to a great extent, superseded by steel or iron, there seems to be no good evidence to prove; it is probable, however, that the use of flint and steel was well known to the Romans of the Augustan age, and that Virgil [64] pictured the Trojan voyager as using steel, when—

And again, where—

In Claudian [66] we find the distinct mention of flint and steel—

At Unter Uhldingen [67] a Swiss lake station where Roman pottery was present, was found what appears to be a steel for striking a {17} light. However the case may have been as to the means of procuring fire, it was not until some centuries after the invention of gunpowder that flints were applied to the purpose of discharging fire-arms. Beckmann, [68] in his “History of Inventions,” mentions that it was not until the year 1687 that the soldiers of Brunswick obtained guns with flint-locks, instead of match-locks, though, no doubt, the use of the wheel-lock with pyrites had in some other places been superseded before that time.

I am not aware of there being any record of flints, such as were in use for tinder-boxes, [69] having been in ancient times an article of commerce: this, however, must have been the case, as there are so many districts in which flint does not naturally occur, and into which, therefore, it would have by some means to be introduced. Even at the present day, when so many chemical matches are in use, flints are still to be purchased at the shops in country places in the United Kingdom; and artificially prepared flints continue to be common articles of sale both in France and Germany, and are in constant use, in conjunction with German tinder, or prepared cotton, by tobacco-smokers. At Brandon [70] a certain number of “strike-a-light” flints are still manufactured for exportation, principally to the East and to Brazil—they are usually circular discs, about two inches in diameter. These flints are wrought into shape in precisely the same manner as gun-flints, and it seems possible that the trade of chipping flint into forms adapted to be used with steel for striking a light may be of considerable antiquity, and that the manufacture of gun-flints ought consequently to be regarded as only a modification and extension of a pre-existing art, closely allied with the facing and squaring of flints for architectural purposes, which reached great perfection at an early period. However this may be, it would seem that when gun-flints were an indispensable munition of war, a great mystery was made as to the manner in which they were prepared. Beckmann [71] says that, considering the great use made of them, it will hardly be believed how much trouble he had to obtain information on the subject. It would be ludicrous to repeat the various answers he obtained to his inquiries. Many thought that the stones were cut down by grinding them; some conceived that {18} they were formed by means of red-hot pincers, and many asserted that they were made in mills. The best account of the manufacture with which he was acquainted, was that collected by his brother, and published in the Hanoverian Magazine for the year 1772. At a later date the well-known mineralogist Dolomieu [72] gave an account of the process in the Mémoires de l’Institut National des Sciences, and M. Hacquet, [73] of Leopol, in Galicia, published a pamphlet on the same subject. The accounts given by both these authors correspond most closely with each other, and also with the practice of the present day, though the French process differs in some respects from the English. [74] This has been well described by Dr. Lottin. [75] The flints best adapted for the purpose of the manufacture are those from the chalk. They must, however, be of fair size, free from flaws and included organisms, and very homogeneous in structure. They are usually procured by sinking small shafts into the ground until a band of flints of the right quality is reached, along which low horizontal galleries, or “burrows,” as they are called, are worked. For success in the manufacture a great deal is said to depend upon the condition of the flint as regards the moisture it contains, those which have been too long exposed upon the surface becoming intractable, and there being also a difficulty in working those that are too moist. A few blows with the hammer enable a practised flint-knapper to judge whether the material on which he is at work is in the proper condition or no. Some of the Brandon workmen, however, maintain that though a flint which has been some time exposed to the air is harder than one recently dug, yet that it works equally well, and they say further, that the object in keeping the flints moist is to preserve the black colour from fading, black gun-flints being most saleable.

A detailed account, by Mr. Skertchly, of the manufacture of gun-flints, with an essay on the connection between Neolithic art and the gun-flint trade, forms an expensive memoir of the geological survey, published in 1879; but it seems well to retain the following short account of the process.

The tools required are few and simple:—

• 1. A flat-faced blocking, or quartering hammer, from one to {19} two pounds in weight, made either of iron or of iron faced with steel.

• 2. A well-hardened steel flaking hammer, bluntly pointed at each end, and weighing about a pound, or more; or in its place a light oval hammer, known as an “English” hammer, the pointed flaking hammer having been introduced from France.

• 3. A square-edged trimming or knapping hammer, which may either be in the form of a disc, or oblong and flat at the end, made of steel not hardened. In England, this hammer is usually made from a portion of an old flat file perforated to receive the helve, and drawn out at each end into a thin blade, about 1 ⁄ 16 of an inch in thickness; the total length being about 7 or 8 inches.

• 4. A chisel-shaped “stake” or small anvil set vertically in a block of wood, which at the same time forms a bench for the workman. In England, the upper surface of this stake is about 1 ⁄ 4 inch thick, and inclined at a slight angle to the bench.

The method of manufacture [76] is as follows:—A block of flint is broken by means of the quartering hammer in such a manner as to detach masses, the newly-fractured surfaces of which are as nearly as possible plane and even. One of these blocks is then held in the left hand, so that the edge rests on a leathern pad tied on the thigh of the seated workman, the surface to be struck inclining at an angle of about 45°. A splinter is then detached from the margin by means of the flaking hammer. If the flint is of good quality, this splinter may be three or four inches in length, the line of fracture being approximately parallel to the exterior of the flint. There is, of course, the usual bulb of percussion, or rounded protuberance at the end, [77] where the blow is given, and a corresponding depression is left in the mass of flint. Another splinter is next detached, by a blow given at a distance of about an inch on one side of the spot where the first blow fell, and then others at similar distances, until some portion of the block assumes a more or less regular polygonal outline. As the splinters which are first detached usually show a portion of the natural crust of the flint upon them, they are commonly {20} thrown away as useless. The second and succeeding rows of flakes are those adapted for gun-flints. To obtain these, the blows of the flaking hammer are administered midway between two of the projecting angles of the polygon, and almost immediately behind the spots where the blows dislodging the previous row of flakes or splinters were administered, though a little to one side. They fall at such a distance from the outer surface as is necessary for the thickness of a gun-flint. By this means a succession of flakes is produced, the section of which is that of an obtuse triangle with the apex removed, inasmuch as for gun-flints, flakes are required with the face and back parallel, and not with a projecting ridge running along the back.

Fig. 2, representing a block from which a number of flakes adapted for gun-flints have been detached and subsequently returned to their original positions around the central core or nucleus, will give a good idea of the manner in which flake after flake is struck off. Mr. Spurrell and Mr. Worthington Smith have succeeded in building up flakes of Palæolithic date into the original blocks from which they were struck. The former has also replaced ancient Egyptian flakes, [78] the one upon the other. Mr. F. Archer has likewise restored a block of flint from Neolithic flakes [79] found near Dundrum Bay, county Down.

To complete the manufacture of gun-flints, each flake is taken in the left hand, and cut off into lengths of the width required, by means of the knapping hammer and the stake fixed in the bench. The flake is placed over the stake at the spot where it is to be cut, {21} and a skilful workman cuts the flake in two at a single stroke. The sections of flakes thus produced have a cutting edge at each end; but the finished gun-flint is formed by chipping off the edge at the butt-end and slightly rounding it by means of the fixed chisel and knapping hammer, the blows from which are made to fall just within the chisel, so that the two together cut much in the same manner as a pair of shears. Considerable skill is required in the manufacture, more especially in the production of the flakes; but Hacquet [80] says that a fortnight’s practice is sufficient to enable an ordinary workman to fashion from five hundred to eight hundred gun-flints in a day. According to him, an experienced workman will produce from a thousand to fifteen hundred per diem. Dolomieu estimates three days as the time required by a “caillouteur” to produce a thousand gun-flints; but as the highest price quoted for French gun-flints by Hacquet is only six francs the thousand, it seems probable that his calculation as to the time required for their manufacture is not far wrong. Some of the Brandon flint-knappers are, however, said to be capable of producing sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand gun-flints in a week. Taking the lowest estimate, it appears that a practised hand is capable of making at least three hundred flint implements of a given definite form, and of some degree of finish, in the course of a single day. If our primitive forefathers could produce their worked flints with equal ease, the wonder is, not that so many of them are found, but that they do not occur in far greater numbers.

An elegant form of gun-flint, showing great skill in surface flaking, is still produced in Albania. A specimen, purchased at Avlona [81] by my son, is shown in Fig. 2A. Some gun-flints and strike-a-lights are formed of chalcedony or agate, and cut and polished.

The ancient flint-workers had not, however, the advantages of steel and iron tools and other modern appliances at their command; and, at first sight, it would appear that the {22} production of flakes of flint, without having a pointed metallic hammer for the purpose, was a matter of great difficulty, I have, however, made some experiments upon the subject, and have also employed a Suffolk flint-knapper to do so, and I find that blows from a rounded pebble, judiciously administered, are capable of producing well-formed flakes, such as, in shape, cannot be distinguished from those made with a metallic hammer. The main difficulties consist—first, in making the blow fall exactly in the proper place; and, secondly, in so proportioning its intensity that it shall simply dislodge a flake, and not shatter it. The pebble employed as a hammer need not be attached to a shaft, but can be used, without any preparation, in the hand. Professor Nilsson tried the same method long ago, and has left on record an interesting account of his experience. [82]

In the neighbourhood of the Pfahl-bauten of Moosseedorf, in Switzerland, have been found numerous spots where flint has been worked up into implements, and vast numbers of flakes and splinters left as refuse. Dr. Keller [83] says, that “the tools used for making these flint implements do not seem to have been of the same material, but of gabbro, a bluish-green and very hard and tough kind of stone. Several of these implements have been met with; their form is very simple, and varies between a cube and an oval. The oval specimens were ground down in one or two places, and the most pointed part was used for hammering.” There were nearly similar workshops at Wauwyl [84] and Bodmann, not to mention places where flint was dug for the purposes of manufacture.

Closely analogous sites of ancient flint-workshops have been discovered both in France [85] and Germany [86] as well as in Great Britain; such, for instance, as that at the confluence [87] of the Leochel and the Don, in Aberdeenshire, where, moreover, flint is not native in the neighbourhood; but proper attention has not, in all cases, been paid to the hammer-stones, which, in all probability, occur with the chippings of flint.

The blow from the hammer could not, of course, be always administered at the right spot; and I have noticed on some ancient flakes, a groove at the butt-end, the bottom of which is crushed, as if by blows from a round pebble, which, from having {23} fallen too near the edge of the block, had at first merely bruised the flint, instead of detaching the flake.

There are, moreover, a certain number of small cores, or nuclei, both English and foreign, from which such minute and regular flakes have been detached, that it is difficult to believe that a mere stone hammer could have been directed with sufficient skill and precision to produce such extreme regularity of form. I may cite as instances some of the small nuclei which are found on the Yorkshire wolds, and some of those from the banks of the Mahanuddy, [88] in India, which, but for the slight dissimilarity in the material (the latter being usually chalcedony and the former flint), could hardly be distinguished from each other. Possibly in striking off the flakes some form of punch was used which was struck with the hammer as subsequently described. There are also some large nuclei, such as those from the neighbourhood of the Indus, [89] in Upper Scinde, and one which I possess from Ghlin, in Belgium, which are suggestive of the same difficulty. In form they much resemble the obsidian cores of Mexico, and it seems not improbable that they are the result of some similar process of making flakes or knives to that which was in use among the Aztecs.

Torquemada [90] thus describes the process he found in use:—“One of these Indian workmen sits down upon the ground, and takes a piece of this black stone” (obsidian) “about eight inches long or rather more, and as thick as one’s leg or rather less, and cylindrical; they have a stick as large as the shaft of a lance, and three cubits or rather more in length; and at the end of it they fasten firmly another piece of wood, eight inches long, to give more weight to this part; then, pressing their naked feet together, they hold the stone as with a pair of pincers or the vice of a carpenter’s bench. They take the stick (which is cut off smooth at the end) with both hands, and set it well home against the edge of the front of the stone (y ponenlo avesar con el canto de la frente de la piedra), which also is cut smooth in that part; and then they press it against their breast, and with the force of the pressure there flies off a knife, with its point, and edge on each side, as neatly as if one were to make them of a turnip with a sharp knife, {24} or of iron in the fire.” Hernandez [91] gives a similar account of the process, but compares the wooden instrument used to a cross-bow, so that it would appear to have had a crutch-shaped end to rest against the breast. So skilful were the Mexicans in the manufacture of obsidian knives, that, according to Clavigero, a single workman could produce a hundred per hour.

The short piece of heavy wood was probably cut from some of the very hard trees of tropical growth. I much doubt whether any of our indigenous trees produce wood sufficiently hard to be used for splintering obsidian; and flint is, I believe, tougher and still more difficult of fracture. We have, however, in this Mexican case, an instance of the manufacture of flakes by sudden pressure, and of the employment of a flaking tool, which could be carefully adjusted into position before the pressure or blow was given to produce the flake.

Mr. G. E. Sellers, in the Smithsonian Report for 1885, [92] has published some interesting “observations on stone chipping,” and from the report of Mr. Catlin, who sojourned long among the Indians of North America, gives sketches of crutch-like flaking tools tipped with walrus tooth or bone which he had seen in use. He also describes a method of making flint flakes by the pressure of a lever. The whole memoir is worthy of study.

The subject of the manufacture of stone implements is also discussed by [93] Sir Daniel Wilson in an essay on the Trade and Commerce of the Stone Age.

There appears to have been another process in use in Central America, for Mr. Tylor [94] heard on good authority that somewhere in Peru the Indians still have a way of working obsidian by laying a bone wedge on the surface of a piece and tapping it till the stone cracks. Catlin [95] also describes the method of making flint arrow-heads among the Apaches in Mexico as being of the same character. After breaking a boulder of flint by means of a hammer formed of a rounded pebble of horn-stone set in a handle made of a twisted withe, flakes are struck off, and these are wrought into shape while held on the palm of the left hand, by means of a punch made of the tooth of the sperm whale, held in the right hand, and struck with a hard wooden mallet by an assistant. Both holder and striker sing, and the strokes of the {25} mallet are given in time with the music, the blow being sharp and rebounding, in which the Indians say is the great medicine or principal knack of the operation.

The Cloud River [96] Indians at the present day use a punch made of deer’s-horn for striking off obsidian flakes from which to make arrow-heads.

Such a process as this may well have been adopted in this country in the manufacture of flint flakes; either bone or stag’s-horn sets or punches, or else small and hard pebbles, may have been applied at the proper spots upon the surface of the flints, and then been struck by a stone or wooden mallet. I have tried some experiments with such stone sets, and have succeeded in producing flakes in this manner, having been first led to suppose that some such system was in use by discovering, in the year 1864, some small quartz pebbles battered at the ends, and associated with flint flakes and cores in an ancient encampment at Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath, of which I have already given an account elsewhere. [97] I am, however, inclined to think that the use of such a punch or set was in any case the exception rather than the rule; for with practice, and by making the blows only from the elbow kept fixed against the body, and not with the whole arm, it is extraordinary what precision of blow may be attained with merely a pebble held in the hand as a hammer.

The flakes of chert from which the Eskimos manufacture their arrow-heads are produced, according to Sir Edward Belcher, [98] who saw the process, by slight taps with a hammer formed of a very stubborn kind of jade or nephrite. He has kindly shown me one of these hammers, which is oval in section, about 3 inches long and 2 inches broad, and secured by a cord of sinew to a bone handle, against which it abuts. The ends are nearly flat. This hammer is now in the Christy Collection at the British Museum and is figured by Ratzel. [99] Another from Alaska, [100] and several such hammers made of basalt from the Queen Charlotte Islands, [101] have also been figured. It seems doubtful whether the proper use of these hammers was not for crushing bones. [102]

Among the natives of North Australia a totally different method {26} appears to have been adopted, the flakes being struck off the stone which is used as a hammer, and not off the block which is struck. In the exploring expedition, under Mr. A. G. Gregory, in 1855–6, the party came on an open space between the cliffs along one of the tributary streams of the Victoria River, where the ground was thickly strewn with fragments of various stones and imperfectly-formed weapons. The method of formation of the weapons, according to Mr. Baines, [103] was this, “The native having chosen a pebble of agate, flint, or other suitable stone, perhaps as large as an ostrich egg, sits down before a larger block, on which he strikes it so as to detach from the end a piece, leaving a flattened base for his subsequent operations. Then, holding the pebble with its base downwards, he again strikes so as to split off a piece as thin and broad as possible, tapering upward in an oval or leaf-like form, and sharp and thin at the edges. His next object is to strike off another piece nearly similar, so close as to leave a projecting angle on the stone, as sharp, straight, and perpendicular as possible. Then, again taking the pebble carefully in his hand, he aims the decisive blow, which, if he is successful, splits off another piece with the angle running straight up its centre as a midrib, and the two edges sharp, clear, and equal, spreading slightly from the base, and again narrowing till they meet the midrib in a keen and taper point. If he has done this well, he possesses a perfect weapon, but at least three chips must have been formed in making it, and it seemed highly probable, from the number of imperfect heads that lay about, that the failures far outnumbered the successful results. In the making of tomahawks or axes, in which a darker green stone is generally used, great numbers of failures must ensue; and in these another operation seemed necessary, for we saw upon the rocks several places were they had been ground, with a great expenditure of labour, to a smooth round edge.”

In the manufacture of flint flakes, whether they were to serve as knives or lance-heads without any more preparation, or whether they were to be subjected to further manipulation, so as eventually to become arrow-heads, scrapers, or any other of the more finished implements, the form of the nucleus from which they were struck was usually a matter of no great importance, the chips or flakes being the object of the operator and not the resulting core, which was in most cases thrown away as worthless. But where very long {27} flakes were desired, it became a matter of importance to produce nuclei of a particular form, specially adapted for the purpose. I have never met with any such nuclei in England, but the well-known livres-de-beurre chiefly found in the neighbourhood of Pressigny-le-grand (Indre et Loire), France, are typical instances of the kind. I have precisely similar specimens, though on a rather smaller scale, and of a somewhat different kind of flint, from Spiennes, near Mons, in Belgium; and a few nuclei of the same form have also been found in Denmark. The occurrence of flints wrought into the same shape, at places so far apart, might at first appear to countenance the view of this peculiar form being that of an implement intended for some special purpose, and not merely a refuse block. This, however, is not the case. I have treated of this question elsewhere, [104] but it will be well here to repeat a portion, at least, of what I have before written on this point.

These large nuclei or livres-de-beurre are blocks of flint, usually 10 or 12 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide in the broadest part, the thickness being in most cases less than the width. In general outline they may be described as boat-shaped, being square at one end and brought to a point—more or less finished—at the other. The outline has been given by striking a succession of flakes from the sides of a mass of flint, until the boat-like contour has been obtained, with the sides slightly converging towards the keel, and then the upper surface corresponding to the deck of the boat has been chipped into form by a succession of blows administered at right angles to the first, and in such a manner that the deck, as originally formed, was convex instead of flat. After this convex surface was formed, one, two, or even more long flakes were dislodged along its whole length, or nearly so, by blows administered at the part represented by the stern of the boat, thus leaving one or more channels along what corresponds to the deck. In rare instances, these long flakes have not been removed, in others of more frequent occurrence, one of the flakes has broken off short before attaining its full length.

Strange as this boat-shaped form may at the outset appear, yet on a little consideration it will be seen that the chipping into such a form is in fact one of the necessities of the case for the production of long blades of flint. Where flakes only 3 or 4 inches long are required, the operator may readily, with his hammer, strike off from the outside of his block of flint a succession of chips, so as to {28} give it a polygonal outline, the projections of which will serve for the central ridges or back-bones of the first series of regular flakes that he strikes off. The removal of this first series of flakes leaves a number of projecting ridges, which serve as guides for the formation of a second series of flakes, and so on until the block is used up.

But where a flake 10 or 12 inches in length is required, a different process becomes necessary. For it is nearly impossible with a rough mass of flint, to produce by single blows plane surfaces 10 or 12 inches in length, and arranged at such an angle as to produce a straight ridge, such as would serve to form the back-bone, as it were, of a long flake; and without such a back-bone, the production of a long flake is impossible. It is indeed this ridge (which need not, of course, be angular, but may be more or less rounded or polygonal) that regulates the course of the fissure by which the flake is dislodged from the matrix or parent flint; there being a slight degree of elasticity in the stone, which enables a fissure once properly commenced in a homogeneous flint to proceed at right angles to the line of least resistance in the dislodged flake, while at the same time exerting a nearly uniform strain, so that the inner surface of the flake becomes nearly parallel to the outer ridge. It was to obtain this outer ridge that the Pressigny cores were chipped into the form in which we find them; and it appears as if the workmen who fashioned them adopted the readiest means of obtaining the desired result of producing along the block of flint a central ridge whenever it became necessary, until the block was so much reduced in size as to be no longer serviceable. For, the process of chipping the block into the boat-like form could be repeated from time to time, until it became too small for further use. The same process of cross-chipping was practised in Scandinavia in early times, and the obsidian cores from the Greek island of Melos, Crete, and other ancient Greek sites prove that it was also known there. The blocks are found in various stages, rarely with the central ridge still left on, as Fig. 3, and more commonly with one or more long flakes removed from them, like Figs. 4 and 5. The sections of each block are shown beneath them. Two of the flakes are represented in Figs. 6 and 7. All the figures are on the scale of one-half linear measure.

The causes why the nuclei were rejected as useless are still susceptible of being traced. In some cases they had become so thin that they would not bear re-shaping; in others a want of {29} uniformity in the texture of the flint, probably caused by some included organism, had made its appearance, and caused the flakes to break off short of their proper length, or had even made it useless to attempt to strike them off. In some rare instances, when the striking off long flakes had proved unsuccessful on the one face, the attempt has been made to procure them from the other. The abundance of large masses of flint near Pressigny—some as much as two or three feet across—has, however, rendered the workmen rather prodigal of their materials. The skill which has been brought to bear in the manufacture of these long flakes is marvellous, as the utmost precision is required in giving the blow by which they are produced. Generally speaking, the projecting ridge left at the butt-end of the nucleus between the depressions, whence two of the short flakes have been struck off in chipping it square, has been selected as the point of impact. They appear to me to have been struck off by a free blow, and not by the intervention of a set or punch. No doubt the face of the flint at the time of the blow being struck was supported on some elastic body. A few flints which bear marks of having been used as hammer-stones are found at Pressigny. {30}

An interesting lecture on the Flint Industry of Touraine was given on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Société Archéologique de Touraine, in 1891, by M. J. de Saint-Venant. {31}

I have hitherto been treating of the production of flint flakes for various purposes. In such cases the flakes are everything, and the resulting core, or nucleus, mere refuse. In the manufacture of celts, or hatchets, the reverse is the case, the flakes are the refuse (though, of course, they might occasionally be utilized) and the resulting block is the main object sought. To produce this, however, much the same process appears to have been adopted, at all events where flint was the material employed. The hatchets seem to have been rough-hewn by detaching a succession of flakes, chips, or splinters, from a block of flint, by means of a hammer-stone, and these rough-hewn implements were subsequently worked into a more finished form by detaching smaller splinters, also probably by means of a hammer, previously to their being ground or polished, if they were destined to be finished in such a manner. In most cases, one face of the hatchet was first roughed out, and then by a series of blows, given at proper intervals, along the margin of that face the general shape was given and the other face chipped out. This is proved by the fact that in most of the {32} roughly-chipped hatchets found in Britain, the depressions of the bulbs of percussion of the flakes struck off occur in a perfect state only on one face, having been partly removed on the other face by the subsequent chipping. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, and more especially among the implements found in our ancient river gravels. In some cases (see postea, Fig. 12) the cutting edge has been formed by the intersection of two convex lines of fracture giving a curved and sharp outline, and the body of the hatchet has been subsequently made to suit the edge. The same is the case with the hatchets from the Danish kjökken-möddings and coast-finds, though the intersecting facets are at a higher angle, and the resulting edge straighter, than in the specimens which I have mentioned. The edge is also, like that of a mortising chisel, at the extremity of a flat face, and not in the centre of the blade. The cutting edge has, however, in most of the so-called celts of the ordinary form, been fashioned by chipping subsequent to the roughing out of the hatchet; and even in the case of polished hatchets, the edge when damaged was frequently re-chipped into form before being ground afresh.

There hardly appears to be sufficient cause for believing that any of the stone hatchets found in this country were chipped out by any other means than by direct blows of a hammer; but in the case of the Danish axes with square sides, and with their corners as neatly crimped or puckered as if they had been made of pieces of leather sewn together, it is probable that this neat finish was produced by the use of some kind of punch or set. The hammer-stones used in the manufacture of flint hatchets appear to have been usually quartzite pebbles, where such are readily to be obtained, but also frequently to have been themselves mere blocks of flint. Many such hammer-stones of flint occurred in the Cissbury pits [105]—of which more hereafter—and I have found similar hammer-stones on the Sussex Downs, near Eastbourne, where also flint implements of various kinds appear to have been manufactured in quantities. Not improbably, these hammers were made of flints which had been for some time exposed on the surface, and which were in consequence harder than the flints recently dug from the pits. We have already seen that the gun-flint knappers of the present day are said to work most successfully on blocks of flint recently extracted, and those, too, from a particular layer in {33} the chalk; and it seems probable that the ancient flint-workers were also acquainted with the advantages of using the flints fresh from the quarry, and worked them into shape at the pits from which they were dug, not only on account of the saving in transport of the partly-manufactured articles, but on account of the greater facility of working the freshly-extracted flints. This working the flints upon the spot is conclusively shown by the examination of the old flint-quarry at Cissbury, Sussex, by General Pitt Rivers (then Colonel A. Lane-Fox) and others. A very large number of hatchets, more or less perfectly chipped out, were there found, as will subsequently be mentioned. That they were in some cases at great pains to procure flint of the proper quality for being chipped into form, and were not content with blocks and nodules, such as might be found on the surface, is proved by the interesting explorations at Grime’s Graves, near Brandon, carried on by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S. [106]

In a wood at this spot, the whole surface of the ground is studded with shallow bowl-shaped depressions from 20 to 60 feet in diameter, sometimes running into each other so as to form irregularly shaped hollows. They are over 250 in number, and one selected for exploration was about 28 feet in diameter at the mouth, gradually narrowing to 12 feet at the bottom, which proved to be 39 feet below the surface. Through the first 13 feet it had been cut through sand, below which the chalk was reached, and after passing through one layer of flint of inferior quality, which was not quarried beyond the limits of the shaft, the layer known as the “floor-stone,” from which gun-flints are manufactured at the present day, was met with at the bottom of the shaft. To procure this, various horizontal galleries about 3 feet 6 inches in height were driven into the chalk. The excavations had been made by means of picks formed from the antlers of the red-deer, of which about 80 were found. The points are worn by use, and the thick bases of the horns battered by having been used as hammers, for breaking off portions of the chalk and also of the nodules of flint. Where they had been grasped by the hand the surface is polished by use, and on some there was a coating of chalky matter adhering, on which was still distinctly visible the impression of the cuticle of the old flint-workers. The marks of the picks and hammers were as fresh on the walls of the galleries as if made but yesterday. {34} It is to be observed that such picks as these formed of stag’s horn have been found in various other places, but have not had proper attention called to their character. I have seen one from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, [107] Suffolk. Canon Greenwell mentions somewhat similar discoveries having been made at Eaton and Buckenham, Norfolk. One was also found by him in a grave under a barrow he examined at Rudstone, near Bridlington, [108] and others occurred near Weaverthorpe and Sherburn. A polished hatchet of basalt had also been used at Grime’s Graves as one of the tools for excavation, and the marks of its cutting edge were plentiful in the gallery in which it was discovered. There were also found some rudely-made cups of chalk apparently intended for lamps; a bone pin or awl; and, what is very remarkable, a rounded piece of bone 4 1 ⁄ 2 inches long and 1 inch in circumference, rubbed smooth, and showing signs of use at the ends, which, as Canon Greenwell suggests, may have been a punch or instrument for taking off the lesser flakes of flint in making arrow-heads and other small articles. It somewhat resembles the pin of reindeer horn in the Eskimo arrow-flaker, shortly to be mentioned. The shaft had been filled in with rubble, apparently from neighbouring pits, and in it were numerous chippings and cores of flint, and several quartzite and other pebbles battered at the ends by having been used as hammers for chipping the flints. Some large rounded cores of flint exhibited similar signs of use. On the surface of the fields around, numerous chippings of flint, and more or less perfect implements, such as celts, scrapers, and borers were found.

At Spiennes (near Mons, in Belgium), where a very similar manufacture but on a larger scale than that of Cissbury or even of Grime’s Graves, appears to have been carried on, flints seem to have been dug in the same manner. Since I visited the spot, now many years ago, a railway cutting has traversed a portion of the district where the manufacture existed, and exposed a series of excavations evidently intended for the extraction of flint. Mons. A. Houzeau de Lehaie, of Hyon, near Mons, has most obligingly furnished me with some particulars of these subterranean works, a detailed account of which has also been published. [109] From this {35} account it appears that shafts from 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches in diameter were sunk through the loam and sand above the chalk to a depth of 30 or even 40 feet; and from the bottom of the shafts lateral galleries were worked, from 5 to 6 feet in height and about the same in width. Stag’s horns which had been used as hammers, were found in the galleries, but it is doubtful whether they had been used as pick-axes like those in Grime’s Graves. Among the rubble in the galleries, as well as on the surface of the ground above, were found roughly-chipped flints and splinters, and more or less rudely-shaped hatchets by thousands. There is one peculiar feature among these hatchets which I have not noticed to the same extent elsewhere, viz., that many of them are made from the nuclei or cores which, in the first instance, had subserved to the manufacture of long flint flakes, the furrows left by which appear on one of the faces of the hatchets. Sometimes, though rarely, the Pressigny nuclei have been utilized in a similar manner.

In France, pits for the extraction of flint have been discovered at Champignolles, Sérifontaine (Oise) [110] and at Mur de Barrez (Aveyron). [111]

Professor J. Buckman [112] has recorded a manufactory of celts and other flint instruments near Lyme Regis.

In these instances, especially at Cissbury and Grime’s Graves in England, and at Pressigny and Spiennes on the Continent, and, indeed, at other places also, [113] there appears to have been an organized manufactory of flint instruments by settled occupants of the different spots; and it seems probable that the products were bartered away to those who were less favoured in their supply of the raw material, flint. At Old Deer, [114] Aberdeenshire, thirty-four leaf-shaped flints, roughly blocked out, were found together.

The chipping out of celts and some other tools formed, not of flint, but of other hard rocks, must have been effected in the same manner. The stone employed is almost always of a more or less silicious nature, and such as breaks with a conchoidal fracture. {36}

Dr. F. A. Forel [115] chipped out a hatchet of euphotide or gabbro with a hammer formed of a fragment of saussurite. The process occupied an hour and ten minutes, and the subsequent grinding three hours more. He made and ground to an edge a rude hatchet of serpentine in thirty-five minutes.

To return, however, to the manufacture of the flint implements of this country, and more especially to those which are merely flakes submitted to a secondary process of chipping. We have seen that in the gun-flint manufacture the flakes are finally shaped by means of a knapping or trimming hammer and a fixed chisel, which act one against the other, somewhat like the two blades of a pair of shears, and the process adopted by the ancient flint-workers for many purposes must have been to some extent analogous, though it can hardly have been precisely similar. One of the most common forms of flint implements is that to which the name of “scraper” or “thumb-flint” has been given, and which is found in abundance on the Yorkshire Wolds, on the Downs of Sussex, and in many other parts of England and Scotland. The normal form is that of a broad flake chipped to a semicircular edge, usually at the end farthest from the bulb of percussion, the edge being bevelled away from the flat face of the flake, like that of a round-nosed turning-chisel. The name of “scraper” or “grattoir,” has been given to these worked flints from their similarity to an instrument in use among the Eskimos [116] for scraping the insides of hides in the course of their preparation; but I need not here enter upon the question of the purpose for which these ancient instruments were used, as we are at present concerned only with the method of their manufacture. I am not aware of any evidence existing as to the method pursued by the Eskimos in the chipping out of their scraping tools: but I think that if, at the present time, we are able to produce flint tools precisely similar to the ancient “scrapers” by the most simple means possible, and without the aid of any metallic appliances, there is every probability that identically the same means were employed of old. Now, I have found by experiment that, taking a flake of flint (made, I may remark, with a stone hammer, consisting of a flint or quartzite pebble held in the hand), and placing it, with the flat face upwards, on a smooth block of stone, I can, by successive blows of the pebble, chip the end of the flake without any difficulty into the desired form. The face of the stone hammer is brought to {37} bear a slight distance only within the margin of the flake, and, however sharp the blow administered, the smooth block of stone on which the flake is placed, and which of course projects beyond it, acts as a stop to prevent the hammer being carried forward so as to injure the form, and brings it up sharply, directly it has done its work of striking off a splinter from the end of the flake. The upper face of the flake remains quite uninjured, and, strange as it may appear, there is no difficulty in producing the evenly circular edge of the scraper by successive blows of the convex pebble.

Some of the other ancient tools and weapons, having one flat face, seem to have been fashioned in much the same manner. In the case of arrow-heads and lance-heads, however, another process would appear to have been adopted. It is true that we know not exactly how