Discovery of Late Glacial Implements in Gallovxty. 325 



thins out. And so where no surface deposits occurred or 

 where denudation had swept them away, tools may be found 

 seemingly intermingled — that were once distinct and separate. 

 Part at least of the relative abundance of flints on the sandy 

 tracts of the raised sea-1jottoms, not only in gravel-pits, but 

 also on the general surface, is due to the facility with which 

 sand is removed, having allowed once separated layers of 

 relics to subside on to the same area of exposure. In some 

 localities where a dividing band is present the implements 

 above and below it have so different characteristics that those 

 found apparently mingled beyond can be quite easily dis- 

 tinguished and their relative ages determined. Once the key 

 to the distribution was known it was easy to foretell with 

 perfect accuracy the very beds and heights in which the 

 different groups would be found represented. Desultory 

 searching was then changed for methodical and systematic 

 work, and in a few minutes more could be obtained than 

 were got in the course of days previously. A peculiarity of 

 the old implements is that they are not stratified most 

 abundantly under those parts of the surface on which tools 

 of a later pattern are found in the greatest numbers. If there 

 be many implements in the talus at the foot of a sand and 

 gravel face (the cutting at Low Curghie road, for instance) a 

 careful search will likely reveal them in the face likewise, 

 firmly embedded and perhaps with the merest point of them 

 exposed to the light of day, or, it may be, so loosened that 

 they are about to drop into the talus below. 



The implements are not by any means scarce, and I have 

 not hesitated to give a number as well as plans of their sites 

 to visitors who were interested in them. Some have thus 

 found their way into the hands of antiquaries of repute who 

 invariably called the arrow-heads of the Low Curghie group 

 (75 ft.) " duck bill knives ; " the Mull or Kilstay group of 

 ridged straight or curved or even twdsted lanceolate (100 ft.) 

 ones " scrapers," or "saws " " without the teeth having been 

 cut;" while the broad, flatted, laterally barbed (150 ft.) Sandy 

 Point group, and the flat triangular ones found at High Drum- 

 more (225 ft.), wxre called "flakes." These are all late 

 glacial arrow-tips, and hence the repugnance, when they are 



