IN HERTFOEDSHIEE. 177 



I have frequently shown how scrapers may have heen made 

 in the manner described, and once it led to an amusing incident. 

 You all know what an admirable lecturer the late Professor 

 Tyndall was. I once met him by appointment at Watford 

 station and we took a walk into the country together, during 

 which I showed him the process of making a scraper, and he 

 was very much interested in it. When near Red Heath a 

 shower came on and we stopped to take shelter, A country girl 

 about twelve years of age came up to us, and Professor Tyndall 

 proceeded to explain to her the process by which a flint scraper 

 could be made ; and whether it was more amusing to watch the 

 amazed expression on the face of the girl who was being instructed, 

 or the intellectual countenance of the Professor who was giving 

 the lecture, I am not prepared to say, but it was certainly a quite 

 unlooked-for result of the little insight which I had given Professor 

 Tyndall into the manner in which stone implements were made. 



Fig. 6. Flint-flake, near Hitchin. i. 



In olden times it was necessary to produce a state of combustion 

 by some ■violent frictional action in order to obtain fire. It has 

 been supposed by some that by striking two flints together a spark 

 can be obtained that will ignite tinder, but that is not the case, 

 as however much flint may be heated it will not burn as some 

 metals do. A spark may be obtained by striking together a piece 

 of iron and a piece of flint, but iron was not known to early man. 

 Pyrites (sulphide of iron), however, has the same property in this 

 respect as iron itself, and Pliny records the tradition that fire was 

 the offspring of Cilix and Pyrodes, which seems to refer to the 

 method of making fire by means of silex and pyrites. I have 

 myself been able to light tinder by means of pyrites and a piece 

 of flint, and this may have been another purpose for which these 

 scrapers were made, as long scrapers worn at the end have been 



