56o 



[Proe. B.N.F.C., 



duly recognized, it continued as an important element in the 

 manufacture of worked flints, down to our own day. 



A MOUNTED FLAKE FROM AUSTRALIA. 



This implement, used at present by the natives of the interior of Australia, is simply 

 an unchipped flake mounted in a handle. Probably some of our Antrim flakes 

 were intended to be mounted in a similar way. 



The sites of the early factories of the North of Ireland, such 

 as at Ormeau, Annadale, Larne, Glenarm, &c, yield vast quan- 

 tities of flakes. They occur also on the present sites of ancient 

 settlements, such as at Ballyholme, Dundrum, Kilroot, Larne, 

 Ballygally, Carnlough, Portrush, Portballintrae, Portstewart, 

 and Castlerock. At the sites of such factories all the appliances 

 and refuse of the workers are found.* In the sand-dunes they 

 are very abundant, particularly at both sides of the Bann- 

 mouth. Here the primative Irish flint manufacturers wrought 

 to the music of " the waves of Tuagh " as they rolled heavily 

 over the sands of " Invir Glais." Flakes are scattered freely 

 all over the ground of the County Antrim, on the heather-clad 

 hill-tops, on the cultivated slopes, on the meadows in the valleys, 

 and on the sites of former lakes now almost obliterated by the 

 accumulation of peat. Wherever they are found, they are 

 known to the expert by certain characteristics of form and 

 fracture that distinguish them from mere natural fragments 

 of flint. 



Their dimensions, shape, and necessarily their lithological 

 character, correspond with the worked flint-flakes found the 

 wide world over. Indeed, the same may be said of nearly all 



* Our northern sand-dunes have been described in several valuable communications 

 published in the Transactions of the R.I.A. and the Journal of the R.S.A.I. 

 The papers from the pen of Mr. W. J. Knowle* are of special interest. 



