164 



TWO PREHISTORIC WEAPONS FOUND NEAR EPPING. 



The stone implement figured (Fig. 2) was found in 1888 by our member, Mr. 

 Charles B. Sworder, of Epping, on " Gill's Farm," in Epping Uplands, and was 

 exhibited by him at a meeting of the Club on January 30th, 1892 (see EssEX 

 Naturalist, vol. vi., p. 17). Its length is 6} in., breadth 3J in., thickness 2 in., 

 and it weighs 2 lb. 2 oz. " It w-as on a heap of stones gathered off the field, 

 intended for use in mending the roads. . . . Mr. Sworder could obtain no 

 information as to when or where it had been found, so the supposition as to its 

 having been gathered with other stones off the farm can only be accepted as 



Fig. 2. — Stone Implement 



(III 1 \l M 



Sworder. 



LiiiM LiL\NDs, BY Mr. C. B. 



probable. The material of the instrument is quartzite — a stone not belonging to 

 Essex nor to the neighbouring counties, although occasionally found with other 

 stones in 'gravel-pits. It seems by its high finish to have been of the latest period 

 of the Neolithic age ; the manner, moreover, in which the hole has been drilled 

 shows that it was done by a skilled workman. Mr. Worthington Smith says that 

 he has never found a drilled hammer-stone in the valley of the Lea, but he has 



Section' to show Form.^tion of the Hole Drilled through the Stone. 



seen one preserved in the, school-room of Waltham Abbey, which had been taken 

 out of the bed of the river. Sir John Evans has given in his work, " Ancient Stone 

 Instruments of Great Britain," a drawing (p. 518) of a similar stone found at 

 Winterborn Bassett, in Wiltshire ; and there is also a drawing of another stone 

 resembling it found at Sporle, near Swaffham, in Norfolk. . . . The hole for 

 the handle has been bored from each side, and is conical, the hole in the middle 

 being much smaller than on the surfaces. How the handle was fi.xed needs 

 explanation, on account of the peculiar formation of the hole, if at right angles, 

 like an adze or garden hoe, it would apparently have required wood to have. been 

 compressed sufficiently to have gone through the small hole in the middle, and 



