By Joseph Stevens, Esq. 107 



There would appear to be considerable difference in the relative 

 proportion of rubbed to chipped specimens found at different places. 

 Sir J. Lubbock writes ' that "those found in Denmark are sometimes 

 polished, but almost, if not quite as often left rough. On the con- 

 trary, in other parts of North-Western Europe, the axes are 

 usually ground to a more or less smooth surface." Now, in Hamp- 

 shire, so far as an opportunity has been afforded of forming an 

 opinion, the chipped implements largely predominate, two rubbed 

 axes only having been found during the course of two years, while 

 the flaked ones have been picked up in considerable quantity. 

 In one of these polished specimens, the rubbing has not obliterated 

 the chip-marks. This is not uncommon, for there is no doubt that 

 the rubbed tools were first flaked into rude outline and subsequently 

 polished, the rubbers emplo3'ed in the process being sometimes met 

 with alongside the rubbed implements. Pieces of broken polished 

 flint occasionally occur which have the appearance of having beea 

 subsequently wrought, and are evidently fragments of axes which 

 had fractured in use and had afterwards been converted into some 

 other tool by flaking. 



As a rule the implements met witb in this neighbourhood do not 

 occur diffused about the fields indiscriminately, although occasional 

 cores and flakes turn up here and there in a great number of the 

 fields, but are found to occupy particular places. I have sometimes 

 walked several miles without meeting with more than an occasional 

 rude flake, and then have lighted on a spot where over perhaps 

 fifty square yards of surface implements lay scattered in abundance. 

 In an area of 18,000 acres, the greater part of which has been 

 pretty well investigated, three or four such places of resort may be 

 enumerated, and these chiefly occur on the brows overlooking the 

 watercourses. From this it might be conjectured that the rude 

 workmen who frequented these places, and who had not advanced 

 beyond the use of flint, with perhaps a scanty supply of metal, and 

 very rude pottery, must have found it difficult to pioneer for water. 



It has occurred to me as not unlikely that the occasional spots, 

 where only a few scattered implements are found, represent places 

 ^ Pre -historic Times, p. 69, 



