124 STONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC., Itf THE DOllSET MUSEUM. 



likeness to gunflints. But I only passingly mention them 

 here, as Evans seems inclined to include them in another 

 class, which may perhaps be considered on another occa- 

 sion. Then there are saws, which are thin flakes with one 

 edge notched, often with great delicacy. We have several 

 specimens. 



v. Our fifth class is that of horers. I confess that of some 

 implements figured by Evans as borers I should without his 

 authority feel some doubt as to their use. As to others, again, 

 there can hardly be any hesitation. Eor piercing holes for 

 sewing hides I should, however, myself prefer some of the 

 keenly pointed small flakes to such flaked borers as I have seen. 

 The bone ones, again, look very handy. We must, how- 

 ever, take it, I suppose, that borers were not only for such 

 work as piercing hides, but also, some of them, for perforating 

 wood, bone, horn, and even stone. I do not think that Evans 

 speaks of there being any certainty that borers were mounted in 

 handles. It is, however, most likely that they w y ere so fitted 

 oftentimes. 



Having now reached about the middle of the subject, but the 

 end of the time that with any conscience I can take up to-day, I 

 close this paper. I hope, however, if the club will indulgently 

 honour me with another audience at the next meeting, to have 

 something more to say then. Some of the stone, or quasi-stone, 

 antiquities unmentioned to-day are by far the most interesting and 

 rare of any in the Museum. I hope also to touch on a very 

 remarkable and little considered distinction drawn by Dawson and 

 others between the witness borne by Neolithic worked stones and 

 Palaeolithic ones about the men of their respective epochs. For 

 to-day, let me leave with you a picture, however faint, of our 

 Celtic Durotrigian forefathers, as men of clever heads, deft hands, 

 long toilsomeness, men (as Dr. Jessop darkly hints) much more 

 forward in the world than we have hitherto been taught. Such, in 

 a sentence, is the not " sermon" but history in these worked 

 stones of Dorset. 



