460 FLOOKAN 



archaeologists as the ' stono-nge ; ' a period apparently anterior to the knowledge of 

 any metal, excepting gold. The so-called stone-age, which indicates a phase of civili- 

 sation rather than an epoch of definite date, has been divided by Sir John Lubbock 

 into a newer and an older period, termed respectively the neolithic and the paleolithic 

 age. The neolithic implements, although commonly of flint, are by no means exclu- 

 sively so ; blood-stone, jade, porphyry, and indeed any stone sufficiently hard, having 

 been also employed. In form they present considerable variety, comprising axes or 

 celts, knives, scrapers, sling-stones, spear-heads, arrow-heads, and the like ; many of 

 them, especially the celts, being wrought into highly-finished forms, and even ground 

 and polished to a cutting-edge. 



Of a far higher antiquity and of a much ruder type than any of these polished 

 relics of the newer stone-period are those primitive flint implements of palaeolithic age 

 which within the last few years have been found in deposits of drift-gravels, frequently 

 at considerable depths and, in many cases, associated with the remains of extinct 

 mammalia discoveries which have excited an intense interest from their bearing upon 

 the much-vexed question of the antiquity of the human race. To these early flint 

 implements attention was first directed by the late M. Boucher de Perthos, a French 

 antiquary, who had from time to time discovered them in the gravel-pits in the valley 

 of the Somme, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Amiens and of Abbeville. Although 

 the first discovery was made as early as 1841, the subject attracted but little notice 

 until the year 1859, when the locality was visited, and the instruments and their mode 

 of occurrence described, by Messrs. Prestwich and Evans. The deposits in which these 

 worked flints are found consist of stratified sands and gravels, often of considerable 

 thickness, resting upon an eroded surface of chalk, and referred by geologists to the 

 pleistocene or post-pliocene period; a time when the climate of Northern Europe 

 was considerably colder than at present, and when these latitudes were inhabited by 

 the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave-bear, and other mammalia now 

 extinct. The flint implements have been found chiefly in the lower beds of these 

 drift deposits, immediately overlying the chalk, and frequently beneath a thickness 

 of more than 20 feet of undisturbed sand, brick-earth, &c., containing shells in 

 some places marine, in others land and freshwater, together with the bones and teeth 

 of certain extinct mammalia, but never with the remains of man. It should be 

 remarked that these drift-implements, unlike those of the more recent stone-age, are 

 formed exclusively of flint, and that they never exhibit the slightest trace of having 

 been either ground or polished. The form of these implements is, moreover, quite 

 characteristic. But, although of an extremely rude type, they bear quite sufficient 

 evidence of design to verify them as the results of human workmanship ; whilst, on 

 the other hand, their extreme antiquity is attested not only by the position in which 

 they occur, but also by the glossy varnish-like character of their surface, totally unlike 

 that of recently -fractured flint. The possibility of their having been modern forgeries 

 is further precluded by the fact that many of them are coated with a calcareous in- 

 crustation, and that they occasionally exhibit on the surface dendritic markings pro- 

 duced by the slow action of the oxides of manganese and iron. 



Since these discoveries have been made in the valley of the Somme, flint-hatchets of 

 the drift-type have been recognised in several localities in this country and elsewhere. 

 Among the more productive English localities may be mentioned the valley of the 

 Little Ouse, Thetford, Fareham, Bournemouth, the Keculvers, and the valley of the 

 Thames. 



FLINT CLASS. See GLASS. 



FLIjrTY SKATS. A very siliceous black schist, often containing 75 per cent, 

 of silica. It is used as a ' touchstone ' for testing gold, by a comparison of the colour 

 of the streak made by the metal. See ASSAY. 



FLITTERN BARK. The bark of young oak trees, which is distinguished from 

 coppice bark by its superior quality, and also from the bark of old oak trees, known as 

 timber bark. Flittern bark is much used by the tanner. 



FLOAT-STONE. (Quartz nectique, Fr. ; Schwimmstein, Ger.) A light con- 

 cretionary or cellular form of silica, sufficiently open in texture to flout on water. 



FLOCK and FLOCBIS. The first is finely-powdered wool, used when dyed of 

 various colours to prepare paper hangings. 



The second is a name given to the refuse or waste of cotton and wool, and is used 

 for stuffing mattresses. 



FLOCK. PAPER. Paper prepared for walls by being sized in the first instance, 

 either over the whole surface or over special parts, constituting the pattern only, and 

 then powdering over it flock or powdered wool which had been previously dyed. 



FLOOKAN or F I. UK AN. The name given by the Cornish miners to veins 

 filled wholly with clay. This is usually applied to such veins or lodes as are at 

 right angles, or nearly so, to the true metalliferous lodes* 



