396 



Described 



Its age. 



The flint co- 

 vered with a 

 thin coat. 



HEAD OF FLINT. 



Chateau des Ternes, and is now a boarding-school for young- 

 ladies. A gardener discovered it in digging up the ground, 

 at less than two feet deep. This was all the information we 

 could get ; and nothing since has been discovered, that can 

 lead to the slightest conjecture respecting the time or cir- 

 cumstances of its being buried there : but the singularities 

 it exhibits sufficiently excite the curiosity of the antiquary, 

 the naturalist, and even the artist, to induce us to attempt 

 to satisfy it, by an examination of what remains of it. 



It is a head sculptured out of a piece of flint, of the same 

 nature and appearance as that of which gun-flints are made. 

 From the point of the chin to the crown of the head, it is 9 

 cent. [3|- inches], from the forehead to the back of the head 

 76 mill. [3 inches], and its circumference, taken above the 

 nose, is 236 mill. [9^ inches]. 



A hole 13 mill, [f an inch] in diameter, in the lower part, 

 and still partly filled with gypsum mixed with lime, appears 

 to have served the purpose of uniting this head with the 

 body of the figure, probably formed of another piece of 

 flint, or perhaps of some substance more easily wrought ; 

 and which, according to the usual proportions, must have 

 been 54 cent. [21 inches] high; so that the whole statue 

 would have been 63 cent [24| inches]. 



From the form in which the hair is dressed, it appears to 

 be the head of a man.. The hair is short, and confined by 

 a simple, narrow band, such as the Greeks and Romans 

 wore ; which, added to the style of the figure, seems to in- 

 dicate an antiquity considerably prior to the times of the 

 Gauls ; though the apple of the eye is marked out, which 

 very rarely occurs in really ancient works. 



But we shall leave to more competent judges the discus- 

 sion of these points, of which we thought a brief mention 

 necessary, to render the description of the stone complete, 

 and place in its proper point of view the question, that has 

 principally engaged the attention of the class. 



The flint, of which this head is made, has been covered, 

 in all the parts that have neither been broken nor worn away 

 by friction, with a fine white coating of a scarcely percepti- 

 ble thickness, attackable by no acid, and uniting with a 

 hardness at least equal to" that of calcedony the glassiriess 



of 



