362 
THE GEOLOGIST, 
to cut or pierce at tlie pointed end ; whereas in the ordinary form of stone 
hatchet or celt, the cutting edge is ahnost 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 grublDing 
for esculent roots, or tilling the ground, assuming that the race who formed 
them was sufiiciently 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 sliarply 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 il 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, but nearly all ground sufficiently to ensui-e a clean cutting edge. The 
The implements from the drift are, on tlie 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. 
