HOLMES] PROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE 95 



wliicli, tliey would come into actual use would not depend on the sim- 

 plicity of tlie single act, but, .supposing- materials and needs uniform, 

 on the ease with which they could be made to produce desired results. 

 Without going into details, which I have discussed elsewhere,' it may 

 be stated that although the tlaking act is not more simi)le or elemental 

 than the others it is not decidedly more difldcult, and that it has an 

 enormous advantage over them in being capable by a single opera- 

 tion — a simple blow — of producing effective and constantly needed 

 implements for cutting and piercing, whereas the other acts must be 

 repeated many times without marked results, and repeated in such 

 manner and order as to bring about a result not comprehensible save 

 through long periods of experiment. Therefore, I conclude that where 

 materials are favorable the powers and wants of men will tend most 

 decidedly to the ado]>tion and general practice of the iiaking jji-ocesses 

 in advance of the other stone-shaping processes. At the same time it 

 would seem that there need be assumed no great gulf between the two 

 classes of operations. It is indeed hard to see how one could exist 

 for a long period without the develoi)ment of the other. Assunnng 

 that in general flaking is the first to be utilized, we can understand 

 how the other process would be suggested to man. When a mass of 

 stone is to be broken and flaked into shape, a flaking .stone or ham- 

 mer is called for. This hammer in use becomes bruised and gradually 

 takes upon itself a purely artificial shape— the result of battering. If 

 irregularly ovoid, it is in use turned between the thumb and fingers 

 until its periphery becomes symmetric. Viewing this result it would 

 seem but natural that the workman should understand and apply to 

 producing other shapes the processes by means of which the tool in 

 his hand is reduced to specialized shape. Again, the stone flaked, if it 

 be somewhat tough, is often battered on the edges by the hammer in 

 vain attem])ts to remove flakes, so that portions of the surface are 

 changed in contour and exhibit the battered character. It seems 

 remarkable that such operations should go on for long ages lu'oducing 

 visible results without attempts to utilize the means of modifying 

 shape thus distinctly suggested. At any rate the time did come when 

 primitive men recognized the adcijuacy of battering as a means of 

 shaping stones. Natural forms were first modified in use and the 

 operations came to be understood and applied. Battering, called in its 

 typical development pecking, was resorted to as a means of increasing 

 the adajitability of available forms to ordinary needs, and a new and 

 important group of shaping operations sprang into existence. 



The tidewater country furnishes much evidence on the practice of 

 this Ttranch of the shaping arts among a rude seminomadic people. On 

 ancient sites we find artificially modified water-worn rocks — bowlders 

 and pebbles of hard and tenacious materials — cast away at all stages 

 of the shaping operations from the first traces of pecking, where the 



iProceedings of the Americau Association for the Advancement of Science. Madison meetin;,', 1893, 

 pp. 289-300. 



