XIV 



The President remarked that he had seen a great number of 

 these flints in this and other counties, and there could be no doubt 

 that some of them were the productions of a rude people living in 

 an age anterior to that in which the use of metals was introduced. 

 But, on the other hand, there was a very large class which might 

 easily have been produced by natural means. Perhaps it was not 

 generally known, that at Brandon, in Suffolk, there was formerly 

 an immense manufactory of gun flints. These had now gone out 

 of use, but any one who witnessed the operation of making the 

 flints, would find that it was of the simplest character possible, and 

 that by two or three well-directed blows, the flint was chipped 

 into the proper shape for the gun. It was evident to him that 

 while there could be no doubt many of the flints which had been 

 found were used by the people in a rude age, there were others, 

 with regard to which every one must agree with Mr. Whitley, that 

 there was no prima facie ground for calling them artificial. On the 

 Continent, as well as in this country, these flake-flints were found 

 in large quantities — whole strata ; and it was extremely difiicult 

 to come to the conclusion that they were artificial. If they were 

 artificial, the conclusion must be that there had been immense prse- 

 Adamite manufactories. In the absence of positive information, 

 he should say that some of these were mere congeries of natural 

 productions ; and that that was the case with many wliich had 

 been supposed by persons of rather large credulity to be the re- 

 mains of some very extensive manufactory. At the same time 

 there was a large class of such objects which appeared to fluctuate 

 intermediately between the science of Geology and that of History, 

 or of Antiquity, which was, to a certain extent, the same thing as 

 History. 



Dr. Jago remarked that there were on the table several flints 

 that were really from the Valley of the Somme. They had been 

 brought from France by Mr. Whitley himself, but were not alluded 

 to in his Paper. This was the first time he had had an opportunity 

 of seeing any of these flints : and he could not refrain from calling 

 attention to the fact that they were very difi'erent in their 

 characters from those which had been produced from Dosmary 

 Pool and from Crousa Downs. They were of vastly greater size, 

 and of singularly angular shape, shewing a multitude of chippings, 

 being very unlike the small fragments produced by Mr. Whitley 

 from our pools and raised beaches. The latter were the result of 

 one, two, or at most, a very few fractures, and could never be re- 

 garded, by the most cursory observer, as other than accidental 

 productions, like pieces of spar, or any other sort of stone fragment. 

 He did not pretend to decide whether the former were unquestion- 



