362 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



to cut or pierce at the pointed end ; whereas in the ordinary form of stone 

 hatchet or celt, the cutting edge is almost without exception at the broad end, 

 while the more pointed end seems intended for insertion into the handle or 

 socket, and the sides are generally rounded or flat, and not sharp. 



" These spear-shaped weapons from the drift are, on the contrary, not at all 

 adapted for insertion into a socket, but are better calculated to be tied to a shaft 

 or handle, with a stop or bracket behind their truncated end. Many of them, 

 indeed, seem to have been intended for use without any handle at all, the 

 rounded end of the flints from which they were formed having been left un- 

 chipped, and presenting a sort of natural handle. It is nearly useless to specu- 

 late on the purposes to which they were applied ; but, attached to poles, they 

 would prove formidable weapons for encounter with man or the larger animals, 

 either in close conflict or thrown from a distance as darts. It has been sug- 

 gested by M. de Perthes, that some of them may have been used merely as 

 wedges for splitting wood ; or, again, they may have been employed in grubbing 

 for esculent roots, or tilling the ground, assuming that the race who formed 

 them was sufficiently advanced in civilization. This much I think may be said 

 of them with certainty, that they are not analogous in form with any of the 

 ordinary implements of the so-called Stone period. 



" The same remark holds good with regard to the third class into which I have 

 divided these implements, viz., those with a cutting edge all round (pi. ii., No. 3). 

 In general contour they are usually oval, with one end more sharply curved than 

 the other, and occasionally coming to a sharp point, but there is a considerable 

 variety in their form, arising probably from defects in the flints from which 

 they were shaped ; the ruling idea is, however, that of the oval more or less 

 pointed. 



" They are generally almost equally convex on the two sides, and at length 

 vary from two to eight or nine inches, though for the most part only about four 

 or five inches long. 



" It is to be remarked that among the implements discovered in the cavern 

 called Kent's Hole, near Torquay, were some identical in form with those of 

 the oval type from Abbeville. 



" As before observed, in character they do not resemble any of the ordinary 

 stone implements with which I am acquainted, though I believe some few of 

 these also present a cutting edge all round, but at the same time are much 

 thinner, and more triangular than oval or almond-shaped in their form. 



"As to the use which this class of flint -implements from the drift was origi- 

 nally intended to fulfil, it is hard to speculate. The workmen who find them 

 usually consider them to have been sling-stones, and such some of the smaller 

 sizes may possibly have been, whether propelled from an ordinary sling or from 

 the end of a cleft stick ; many, however, seem to be too large for such a purpose, 

 and were more probably intended for axes cutting at either end, with the handle 

 securely bound round the middle of the stone, and if so there would be a reason 

 why it might be desirable to have one end more pointed than the other, so that 

 one instrument could be applied to two kinds of work. M. de Perthes has 

 suggested, that they might also have been mounted as hatchets by insertion in 

 a socket scooped out in a handle. But all this is conjecture. In point of 

 workmanship, I think it will be perceived that the weapons or implements now 

 under consideration differ considerably from those of the so-called Stone-period: 

 of these latter, by far the greater number (with the exception of the arrow- 

 heads) are more or less ground, and even polished ; some with the utmost care 

 all over, bui nearly all ground sufficiently to ensure a clean cutting edge. The 

 The implements from the drift are, on the contrary, so far as has been hitherto 

 observed never ground, but their edges left in the rough state in which they 

 have been chipped from the flint. 



