70 F. J. Bennett — Machine-made Implements. 



some flints the human fracture is not distinguishable from the 

 natural fracture. 



The mill also rotates at a definite speed for a definite time, and 

 so cannot compare with Nature. In order to get any results of 

 value, the flints should be examined first, and samples taken out 

 from time to time and compared, and yet the flints in question are 

 only taken out after about 29 hours' interval. 



There is another complication, which also seems to introduce 

 a human element, if we may say so, in the case of the harrows 

 with chain attachments, and these harrows in one of the mills visited 

 by the writer were also weighted with old gear wheels, etc. So that, 

 added to the impact of flint against flint, there is also a possible 

 knapping action due to the teeth of the harrows and to the links 

 of the chains, and these, in shape and possibly in effect, would 

 compare with the pebbles used in knapping ; the teeth, too, of the 

 old gear wheels may also be chipping agents. Hence it becomes 

 more difficult to say by which of these agencies, or by their 

 combination, the fractures are produced. Thus any quasi-human 

 results may be due to these quasi-human agencies introduced. 



It is also possible, if the ai'ea contains worked flints, that 

 these may be introduced. And in the cases we have investigated 

 such flints do occur in the area. The analogy also with Nature 

 would be closer if the harrows, etc., could be removed and the 

 flints subjected only to the torrential action of the water. 



So much for some of the objections. I will now give some 

 account of the observations I have just made at certain wash-mills 

 in Kent. These mills are confined to brickyards. The results are 

 found to vary with the kind of flint, with that of the matrix, and 

 with the proportion of this to the flints and to their size. I will take 

 the mills as I observed them, but the washing process was not then 

 in operation in any one of them. 



The first was that at Pascall's Kiln, at Piatt, near Wrotham, 

 Kent. There, resting irregularly on the Ganlt, is an angular white 

 flint gravel much weathered, together with some much worn flints. 

 At another part of the brickyard is a sandy loam with some blocks of 

 sandstone and a few small scattered flints, and this seemed to be 

 washed together with the Gault, as the wash-heap also contained 

 sand and rounded lumps of sandstone. 



The small angular flints were not affected at all by the milling 

 action, and the other flints only slightly so. Samples of all those 

 that were at all like implements were taken, and most of those were 

 Eolithic in form merely, and photographs of these would pass as 

 good Eoliths, but some of rude palEeolithic form were also found. 

 The flint being of a coarse and cherty nature, the ' work ' was rough 

 in accordance with this material. 



On two of the specimens the writer, who can knap so that he can 

 deceive an expert, and can treat the chipped flint so as to remove 

 the new look, tried his hand, and chipped and braised and ' treated ' 

 (the work of a few minutes only) one side of each specimen, so 

 successfully that there was no real difference between his side and 



