26 Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 
have been roughly chipped, or present natural inequalities there, 
so as to allow of their being secured by bands of twisted osier or 
hazel twigs or by strips of hide in order that they might be used 
by two or more men. It may be that they were fitted with handles 
for directing the blow and ropes for lifting them as is the practice 
in Japan for the heavy wooden mauls (Fig. 11) employed there for 
beating down the foundation stones of houses. 
As regards the uses to which they were applied, it will be evident, 
from what will be advanced later, that they were employed not 
only for roughly breaking the rude blocks into regular forms but 
also for working down their faces to a level or slightly curved 
surface. 
The boulders of which they consist were apparently deriyed from 
a stratum of the quartzite variety of sarsen, about 7—9 inches in 
thickness, which occurred in the sandstone beds that once overlaid 
the chalk of the district. 
The weights of these large stone mauls range from 43 pounds 
6 ounces to 64 pounds 3 ounces, with one exception which only 
weighs 36 pounds 2 ounces. 
Similar mauls have been found in the ancient copper mines at 
Llandudno and near Lake Superior, but none of these exceded 40 
pounds in weight. 
The whole of the implements discovered must unquestionably 
be regarded as the discarded tools of the prehistoric builders of 
Stonehenge. Rude as they are they are nevertheless most efficient 
work tools, and with them the megalithic blocks of the structure 
were undoubtedly shaped and trimmed. 
Perhaps the most striking features of the flint implements is 
their extreme rudeness, and that there is not a single ground or 
polished specimen among them. This, at first sight and without 
due consideration, might be taken to indicate an extremely remote 
age. But in this connection it must be borne in mind that in the 
building of such a stupendous structure as Stonehenge the tools 
required must have been numbered by thousands. The work, too, 
was of the roughest character, and for such only rude tools were 
required. The highly finished and polished implements which we 

