Knapping Flints 57 



who is paid by the thousand, cannot afford the time 

 that many ethnologists have given to imitate the 

 craftsmanship and reproduce the tools of primitive 

 man. Regarding the methods by which these were 

 made, the reader may be referred to the ' Ancient 

 Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great 

 Britain,' by Sir John Evans. ' Either bone or stag's 

 horn sets or punches, or else small and hard pebbles,' 

 he says, ' may have been applied at the proper spots 

 upon the surface of the flints, and then been struck by 

 a stone or wooden mallet.' To follow him at present, 

 however, would lead us away from the one little link 

 with the Stone age that we have chosen to examine. 



For I am anticipating, and ought to have begun 

 at the quarries, since it must be understood that the 

 flint used is found in large nodules among chalk, and 

 must be excavated before it can be chipped. If we 

 go out on Brandon Heath, we shall see many acres of 

 rough grassland, bordered on one side by a green 

 plantation and on another by a field of wheat. They 

 are dotted all over with grey heaps of chalky earth, 

 showing where generation after generation of men has 

 been digging for flints. Some of the mounds are so 

 old that the dust blown over them by the wind has 

 become a soil for rough grass ; and self-sown whins 

 (under which rabbits have their burrows) have thrust 

 up between the lumps. But under the trees, and close 

 up to the corn, the mounds are glittering white, for 

 here the men, even now, are tossing up fresh chalk. 



