AN INTERESTING FIND. 231 



Ballachulish in our neighbourhood. At a depth of ten feet in the 

 " drift " subsoil, underlying six or seven feet of moss, only removed 

 within recent years in the ordinary course of peat-cutting, was 

 found the remains of what, in the far past, must have been a flint 

 instrument manufactory on a large scale. Within an area of twenty 

 or thirty square yards was disclosed several cartloads of flint 

 chippings, manifestly broken off in the manufacture of flint instru- 

 ments, for we have been able to secure several arrow heads, two 

 roughly finished chisels, and a hammer head of curious shape, with 

 a hole in the centre, which must have cost the maker no small 

 amount of time and trouble in the manipulation. What renders 

 this " find " more interesting is the fact that the material must 

 have been brought to the place of manufacture from a considerable 

 distance, flint being of rare occurrence anywhere in Nether Lochaber. 

 Underlying such a depth of solid moss and drift, such a discovery 

 necessarily carries us back to a race of men who lived in a very 

 remote period indeed ; how remote, even geology is as yet unable 

 absolutely to say. We were unfortunately from home at the time 

 the discovery was made, and were thus prevented from examining 

 the whole in situ. This much, however, is certain, that under a 

 diluvial bed of drift, gravel, and sand of upwards of two feet in 

 thickness, underlying a thickness of at least six feet of solid moss, 

 a flint instrument manufactory is found, the work of a people who 

 lived before the deposit of that drift and the growth of that moss. 

 How many thousands and thousands of years ago lived that flint- 

 working race, who, in view of the extreme slowness of geological 

 changes, can say? We know that in the celebrated case of the 

 discovery of flint weapons at Abbeville and elsewhere in France 

 the remains of extinct species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other 

 mammals were found at an immense depth in the drift alongside 

 of flint instruments unquestionably fashioned by human hands. 

 Whether our Ballachulish discovery is to be held as a connecting 



