53 



8. The Implements p^'oper to the floor — 



These are for the most part of the usual type : hammers 

 and knappers ; scrapers, flakers, thumbstoues and borers ; 

 together with knives, spear-heads and arrow-tips. As 

 regards these it may be noticed that they are small in 

 size, somewhat rudely made, and entirely destitute of 

 polish. 



But there are other implements of a type by no means 

 usual. 



In the Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington there 

 were shown, last year, as the work of Bushmen, Hottentots 

 and Kaffirs, some diminutive tools of flint labelled " drills." 

 Similar flint implements have been met with in Egypt ; 

 in the Exeter Museum are some slender points of worked 

 flint that were discovered beneath a submerged forest near 

 Westward Ho ! and small worked crescents of flint and 

 agate have been found in caves of the Vindhya Hills of 

 India. But aU these are far surpassed, as regards minute- 

 ness and delicacy of workmanship, by the implements of 

 the East Lancashire floor. Indeed in some of them the 

 secondary flaking is so fine that it cannot well be seen 

 without a magnifying glass. Eoughly speaking, these 

 minute implements are divisible into two classes, and are 

 probably borers and gravers. Those of one class taper 

 slenderly to a point, as if for drilhng eyes in bone needles ; 

 while those of the other class have the form of an old- 

 fashioned pen-knife, and are shaped so much on one 

 pattern that, in nearly every instance, when their flat or 

 unflaked surface is placed downwards the dorsal angle is 

 on the left hand, and the long side of the triangle is 

 on the right hand. In fact they closely resemble a modern 

 graving tool, and were doubtless used for carving orna- 

 mental devices on bone or wood. They present, moreover, 

 certain peculiarities of local manufacture—the minute 

 implements of one station differ somewhat in style from 

 those of another. 



The smaUness of some of the thumbstones also deserves 

 attention. It would seem to be impossible to use them. 

 M. De Mortillet, in his "Prehistoric Antiquity of Man" 

 speaks of " les haches amulettes " which he says are 

 " small axes — too small, or made of a stone too soft, for 

 " use, and yet fashioned with great care." Perhaps these 

 are amulet-thumbstones. 



9. Negative evidence from the floor — 



Hitherto no barbed arrow heads, nor any fragments 

 suggesting one, have been seen on an undisturbed floor. 

 They are met with on denuded patches of moor-land. 



