18 STONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC., IN THE DORSET MUSEUM. 



having been found by Mr. Cunnington near barrows, are in liis 

 belief tools made hastily for the interment-work and then thrown 

 away. Again, in our Dorset collection we have a fair number of 

 well chipped Neolithic celts. Most stone celts, even from far apart 

 lands, such as England and Japan, have a strangely marked family 

 likeness. They are of a long, narrow form, widening gradually 

 towards the end, where seems to be the cutting edge. In connection 

 with this instinct for producing that shape, Evans notes that the 

 burnishing stones used at this day by pewterers and bookbinders 

 aie curiously like celts. But we have one or two ancient Dorset 

 specimens of a different type of celts. It is hard to say whether 

 this kind of flint celt is the prototype of the plain, flat bronze celt, 

 or an imitation of it. Very possibly the latter. The flint tools, 

 doubtless, continued to be used long after bronze was imported. 

 This is the state of things, as regards steel, to this day in Central 

 America. One of our flint celts (PI. I., fig. 7) in question is 

 almost too small to be called a celt, and another is not much 

 larger. But then we have a bronze celt about on a par as 

 to size. And now we come to the celts which, among French 

 antiquaries, give a name to the Neolithic epoch the polished 

 celts. To us in this hurrying age the thought of the time 

 which must have been spent in grinding down flint, to the 

 extent which we see, is simply appalling. But it is nothing at 

 all to the work done in boring beryl within quite modern years by 

 certain South American Indians. With them the boring of one 

 charm went on during great part of two lifetimes, the task being 

 bequeathed from father to son. But we need not pity Indians, or 

 Celts either, in their long labours. In their condition and mode of 

 life leisure was often unlimited. A piece of sedentary work, not 

 very laborious, that could be taken up and put down in a moment, 

 was not a burden, but a positive relief. The smoothing down of 

 the surface of the celts such as you may see in the Museum, and 

 the bringing the edge to that regularity, was not a bore but a solace 

 to our Dorset forefathers. You can almost see them, sitting about, 

 among their round wattled huts, Chalbury way or near Poundbury, 



