180 



Proceedings of the Royal Iri>ih Acaden)?/. 



Throughout this bed, down to the Boulder-clay, flakes were found 

 unweathered and sharp (fig. 6, l^os. 8-9), including a very delicate 

 and well-formed flake (jS'o. 9), also two cores, one of black flint, and 

 the other of translucent yellow flint (No. 7). 



Tn the Boulder-clay which underlay the last bed, several broken 

 fragments of translucent flint were found, but uo artificial flakes. 

 The change from the artificial flakes and cores of the lowest bed to the 

 naturally broken flints of the Boulder-clay was most instructive. 



The condition of the flints in the gravelly clay below the sand 

 indicates that here, on the slope of the bank of Boulder-clay, they 

 escaped the beach action, and lay as they fell from the hands of the 

 flint- workers, being covered up gradually as the land sauk, till at 

 length a sandy shore overspread the bed on which, as the land sank 

 further, the gravels of the upper beds were thinly spread. 



The only place, during our examination of the gravels last Easter, 

 at which a systematic collection of flakes was made, was the ballast 

 pit ^(Plate YII.). There the gravels stood 10 to 12feet thick on the 

 Boulder-clay, passing into sand at the bottom. A piece 5 ft. by 4 ft. was 

 taken down, care being taken to guard against flakes falling from higher 

 levels when collecting. The disturbed surface-layers, here as at the 

 other points, yielded great quantities of chipped and abraded flakes, 

 not counted (fig. 7, ^s^os. 1 and 2). After 1 ft. 6 in. flakes became 

 scarce ; from 2 ft. to 4 ft. only seven flakes were got ; from 4 ft. to 6 ft. 

 twenty -two flakes and cores ; from 6 ft. to 8 ft., thirty-eight flakes 

 and cores ; from 8 ft. to 9 ft., twenty-two flakes and cores. After a 

 depth of 9 feet, flakes and cores became very scarce ; between 9 and 10 

 feet only six were found. A selection of these is illustrated (fig. 7). 



Form of the FJahes. 

 A noticeable feature of the Larne flakes is the number of examples 

 in which the bulb of percussion is at the narrow end of the flake ; the 

 opposite end being broad and thick (fig. 5, JS'o. 1). Moreover, the 

 broad, thick end often shows a portion of the outer crust of the nodule 

 from which the flake was struck. Flakes of this class are so numerous 

 that they are regarded by some collectors as characteristic of the Larne 

 gravels, as also of the raised beach sites around Belfast Lough. There 

 can be no doubt that these are the outer waste flakes, struck olf in the 

 process of reducing a block of flint to the proper truncated cone shape, 

 from which the desired flakes could then be struck. A core, with 

 replaced flakes, in the National Museum, prepared by the Brandon 

 flint-workers to illustrate the process of flaking, shows this feature 



