IX HERTFORDSHIRE. 



17.3 



produce a regular form, having a cutting edge at the broader end. 

 AVheu I was out shooting one day I picked up, in a fiekl at 

 Beduiond, a roughly-formed hatchet of this kind, and showed it 

 to my keeper. Before we had proceeded many hundred yards, 

 the keeper, whose eyes were sharper than mine, discovered a flint 

 hatchet of somewhat narrower proportions, and almost uninjured. 

 It is figured in Plate Xl, lig. 1. I have found four or five of these 

 roughly-chipped hatchets in a single field of my own, and no doubt 

 those who would take the trouble to look in the fields around 

 them would have their efforts rewarded. The roughly-chipped 

 hatchets which have afterwards been ground and polished have in 

 all cases been finished on a grindstone which was fixed and not 

 rotatory, and the striae on them are nearly always longitudinal, 

 thus proving that they were rubbed lengthways, not crossways, on 

 the grindstone. I have a hatchet, which I found in a field of my 

 own at Abbot's Langley, ground at the edge, which has afterwards 

 been intentionally blunted by grinding. A specimen ground at 

 the edge only is shown in Plate IX, fig. 2. Kough-hewn hatchets 



Fig. 2. Flint core with flakes replaced upon it. ^. 



have been found in the neighbourhood of "Ware, and a fine speci- 

 men of a polished hatchet, found in the neighbourhood of Pans- 

 hanger, is in the possession of Earl Cowper ; others have been found 

 at Albury near Bishop's Stortford, and at Hitchin, the latter not 

 being of flint but of some other hai'd stone. The hatchet or celt 

 found at Albury is sharp or but slightly rounded at the sides, and 

 presents a pointed oval in section ; that from Panshanger is flatter 

 at the sides, and has the butt end semicircular, and, like the sides, 

 rounded. Both are polished all over and attain a length of about 

 seven inches. An example of such a celt is shown in Plate IX, fig. o. 



