Knapping Flints 63 



legged stool. His right leg, from the knee up to the 

 thigh, is covered with a heavy guard of thick coarse 

 leather. Looking at him, I have often thought with 

 wonder on a certain passage in Mr. Blackmore's most 

 famous novel. It is where John Ridd breaks the great 

 boulder in the gold mine. ' Then I swung me on high 

 to the swing of the sledge,' says he, ' as a thresher 

 bends back to the rise of his flail, and with all my 

 power descending delivered the ponderous onset.' But 

 the stone-breakers I have known would not dream of 

 accomplishing that feat by main strength, and cer- 

 tainly the flint-knapper does not attempt it. He takes 

 his lump of flint gently on his knee, and turns it over 

 and over, to find out, as he says, where his hammer 

 will take hold ; then, with what is a sharp well-directed 

 tap rather than a downright blow, he splits it in two. 

 Seldom indeed is it necessary to strike twice. But 

 the next operation is a still more wonderful perform- 

 ance with the hammer. Taking a manageable frag- 

 ment in his lap, and catching the nature of its seams 

 and angles with a single glance, he with his light 

 flaking hammer pares off slice after slice in less time 

 than it takes to tell. Every knock at a corner brings 

 away a piece of flint in shape almost identical with 

 that of razor-shells found at the seaside. The edges 

 are like those of a knife, and one side has a surface 

 almost as smooth as glass. On the other he has cal- 

 culated to get two long ridges. To look at the flakes 

 it would appear as though the piece of rock had been 



