562 



[Proc. B.N.F.C., 



IRREGULAR FORMS OF WORKED FLINTS, SHOWING LABOURED 



CHIPPINGS. 



which a suitable flint flake was the first step. Such forms 

 vary much in size and in the amount of workmanship they 

 display ; we have both the rounded and the hollow scrapers, 

 the former being by far the most abundant, and similar to the 

 forms characteristic of the ancient worked flints of France, 

 Belgium, Denmark, &c. The hollow scraper is not nearly so 

 abundant, yet it occurs much more frequently in Ireland than 

 elsewhere ; a few specimens only have been recorded from 

 Yorkshire, and similar forms occur in Scotland.* 



Like the scraper, or thumb-flint, the flint arrow-heads are 

 found throughout the northern counties in large numbers, and 

 of a great variety of forms ; some are very rude indeed, some 

 elaborately wrought ; some are comparatively large, others are 

 extremely small. The forms they assume include very distinct 

 differences, which pass one into the other by almost impercep- 

 tible degrees, all apparently emanating from the typical leaf-shape 

 of the original perfect flake, from which the greatest departure 

 is the long, flat, polished, and pointed spear-head. 



Next to the arrow-heads in importance are the celts, picks, 

 and chisels, the distinction between them being often very slight, 

 the respective terms applied to them are intended more to assist in 

 their classification than to determine the uses to which they were 



* Evans on " Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain." 



