LECTURE X. 



269 



few years tliat attention lias been drawn to tliis subject many- 

 thousands have been extracted from the Somme valley. It 

 is this quantity which affords additional evidence of their 

 being worked, for a single sample may have been the effect 

 of accident, but not so many thousands. 



Three forms have been distinguished. The so-called knives 

 or flakes {eclats) are the least worked; they are thin elongated 

 pieces, with cutting edges, running to a more or less sharp 

 point, and manifestly the result of few blows. 



Fig. 87. Flint Kiiife in the Geneva Museum, presented by Boucher de 

 Perthes. Surface and Profile. 



Among the splinters caused by the breakage of large flints, 

 such were selected as resemble the blade of a knife, which 

 were used for cutting meat, skinning animals, &c., as is also 

 shewn by the worked bones of which we have spoken, and 

 which still shew the indentations made by their flint knives. 



The two other forms are more finished ; they are spear- or 

 lance-shaped. The lance-shaped are longer, some eight inches 

 in length, finely pointed, thicker, and more massive at the 

 broad end, so as to form a sort of a handle. The instru- 

 ments of oval shape have been mostly worked by gentle blows. 

 From the form and workmanship, as well as from compai-ison 

 with pieces of a later period, which are more perfect, it may 

 be shewn that these implements served for wedges. The savages 



