33 



the core, the under part, will generally be found curved, with 

 a concave surface ; and, in accordance with the goodness of the 

 core and the skill of the workman, will be the length and taper- 

 ing character of the " flake." Some of the "flakes" from Pres- 

 signy now in the Christy collection, seen by me during a 

 recent visit to London, reach to a length of at least seven or 

 eight inches, and show great skill in the art of flaking. After 

 this first process the core assumes an altered form (somewhat 

 similar to fig. 2), and the fashion of the "flakes" corre- 

 sponds. This second series, instead of being keeled, has 

 a flat band passing down the front (a. d.), and the flake 

 c. a. c. b. d. is the result (vide fig. 2). 



The core now resumes its former shape before the first set 

 was struck off, and the process may be repeated — the third 

 set being keeled as above described, the fourth flat, banded, 

 and so on ; the " flakes" and the core being of course reduced 

 in size at each repetition of the operation. That this is no 

 imaginary process, nor the result of our internal conscious- 

 ness alone, may be shown by a reference to the workers 

 in stone of the present day, in the New World. Eecent 

 travellers have described the manner in which the natives of 

 Mexico and Austraha prepare their flint weapons, the nature 

 of the materials still causing the form of the weapons to be 

 alike at all times and in all countries. Sir Edward Belcher, 

 at the meeting of the British Association, at Nottingliam, in 

 1866, gave an account of the method by which the Western 

 Esquimaux tribes at Icy Cape, and yet further north, made 

 their weapons, and exhibited some of the very instruments 

 they used. In this instance the " flakes" appear to have 

 been 'pressed ofi by a peculiar instrument made of fossil 

 ivory, tipped with the hard point of the reindeer's antler. 

 Again, we have a graphic description by Torquemada, the 

 old Hispano-American historian, of the manner in which 

 the Aztecs made their obsidian knives — still in use at the 



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