CHAP. vii. FLINT IMPLEMENTS IN VALLEY OF THE SOMME. 113 



localities of these flint tools. In my excursions around 

 Abbeville, I was accompanied by M. Boucher de Perthes, 

 and during one of my explorations in the Amiens district, by 

 Mr. Prestwich. The first time I entered the pits at 

 St. Acheul, I obtained seventy flint instruments, all of them 

 collected from the drift in the course of the preceding five 

 or six weeks. The two prevailing forms of these tools are 

 represented in the annexed figures 8 and 9, each of which are 

 half the size of the originals ; the first being the spear-headed 

 form, varying in length from six to eight inches ; the second, 

 the oval form, which is not unlike some stone implements, 

 used to this day as hatchets and tomahawks by natives of 

 Australia, but with this difference, that the edge in the 

 Australian weapons (as in the case of those called celts in 

 Europe) has been produced by friction, whereas the cutting 

 edge in the old tools of the Valley of the Somme was always 

 gained by the simple fracture of the flint, and by the 

 repetition of many dexterous blows. 



The oval-shaped Australian weapons, however, differ in 

 being sharpened at one end only. The other, though reduced 

 by fracture to the same general form, is left rough, in which 

 state it is fixed into a cleft stick, which serves as a handle. 

 To this it is firmly bound by thin straps of opossum's hide. 

 One of these tools, now in my possession, was given me by 

 Mr, Farquharson of Haughton, who saw a native using it in 

 1854, on the Auburn river, in Burnet district, North Australia. 



Out of more than a hundred flint implements which I 

 obtained at St. Acheul, not a few had their edges more or 

 less fractured or worn, either by use as instruments before 

 they were buried in gravel, or by being rolled in the river's 

 bed. 



Some of these tools were probably used as weapons, both 

 of war and of the chase, others to grub up roots, cut down 

 trees, and scoop out canoes. Some of them may have served, 



i 



