BIKD BOLT HOTEL, CAMBRIDGE 427 



tion of the workmen at the time of discovery by those who 

 know the usual sources of error, and are accustomed to deal 

 with the delvers upon whom we must always depend for much 

 of the evidence. 



The quantity of material obtained under the Bird Bolt 

 premises was large. I have handed over 19 boxes to the 

 Archaeological Museum, and, as I have explained above, that 

 was not nearly all that was found. 



I will now call attention to a few of the types that appear 

 to be most interesting. Every one may have seen the long 

 dagger-like steel sharpener that butchers carry hanging from 

 their girdle. The corresponding objects in the kitchen of the 

 Bird Bolt Hotel and its predecessors on the site were hones of 

 schist or fine sandstone or slate. Some are roughly shaped as 

 that shown in fig. 1 (p. 428), which is a piece of a schistose rock. 

 Some, as the piece of fine grained sandstone shown in fig. 2, 

 have a smooth handle which is so rudely fashioned that one 

 cannot help suspecting that it was not trimmed into shape on 

 purpose, but that what looks like a handle may be only the 

 end which was first worn down by use. Fig. 3 represents a 

 small slate hone, square in section, with a cut round one end, 

 and cross cuts from it across the end, as if for tying a cord to, 

 in order to suspend the hone ; and in fig. 4 we see a small flat 

 hone of slate partly perforated near one end. 



All these hones are smooth on three sides, as if used for 

 sharpening knives, but fluted on the third side as if forks and 

 skewers had been rubbed on them. 



There was a flattened circular stone, fig. 5, found, which 

 appears to be a small boulder, out of the glacial drift, covered 

 with ice scratches. There is no boulder clay so near that this 

 stone can have been transported to this place by natural agen- 

 cies without obliterating the surface polish and scratches. We 

 must therefore suppose that it was carried here for some 

 purpose. A small patch of fine sand is cemented on to it by 

 iron oxide, which was probably the rust of a nail or some other 

 object thrown out with the rubbish, as the condition of the 

 surface shows that the pebble does not come from any deposit 

 of iron sand. The edge of the stone is bruised, as if it had 



