XI 



flints found in tlieir vicinity were not works of art designed for 

 tools or weapons. 



Tlie President said he believed it had been found that in the 

 laborious process of chipping a single arrow-head from a piece of 

 flint, at least from 140 to 150 chips would be struck off. The 

 manufacture of one weapon would therefore account for a large 

 quantity of waste chippings ; as he believed had been proved, ex- 

 perimentally, by making arrow-heads from flints found in Norfolk. 

 It did not follow, therefore, that because one article, undoubtedly 

 the work of msai, was found in a particular locality, all the chip- 

 pings found in the same place were weapons also. 



Mr. Blight said he did not wish to contend that every piece 

 of flint, or flint-flake, was a weaj)on ; and he added that Mr. 

 Spence Bate had informed him that he had found flint chippings, 

 together with ancient pottery and other objects marking human 

 occupation, on some of the spots which, on the Ordnance Maps, 

 were designated " Raised Beaches." 



Dr. Barham exhibited several flint-flakes found beneath the 

 peat on Dartmoor, and other flints which he had picked up in 

 the Scilly Islands. He had submitted both sorts to Sir John 

 Lubbock, whose authority was among the highest, and he was of 

 opinion that the former had unmistakeably been worked by hand, 

 and that the latter bore no trace of human interference. He 

 (Dr. Barham) believed that not one in ten thousand to be found 

 in Scilly, had been so worked ; though it was quite possible that 

 ancient Scillonians finding such objects, used them for various 

 purposes. But he was satisfied that any person visiting Scilly, 

 and finding these flints distributed in the superficial strata ex- 

 posed in the cliffs, and scattered to an almost unlimited extent 

 throughout the valleys, would feel convinced that they were due 

 to some natural cause, and were not of human manufacture. At 

 all events, it was clear that a vast number of them had never been 

 worked ; and, whether they had been formed by ordinaiy causes 

 of fracture, or by variations of temperature, — whether they were 

 to be considered as chippings caused in the formation of tools, or 

 as results of natural causes, — it was certain that none of those 

 " chippings " Avere themselves actually tools. 



Dr. Jago said he did not wish to intimate that flint flakes 

 were not found in Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly which had not 

 been fashioned by hand. He only Avished to observe that the 

 localities in Avhich such flints had been picked up are for the most 

 part distinguished for their numerous barrows and other remains 

 of early inhabitants, and, it may be added, easy accessibility by 

 sea. And he therefore considered it as still open to question, 

 whether such flints owe their distribution to geological causes, or 



