VOL. XX. (3) 
NOTES ON FLINT SURFACES 
239 
NOTES ON THE FLAKING AND PITTING OF FLINT 
SURFACES. 
COMMUNICATED BY 
J. W. GRAY, F.G.S. 
(November 16th, 1920.) 
Most of the flints that form part of the superficial deposits 
of the Cotteswold-Malvem region, with the exception of certain 
examples to be subsequently mentioned, are fractured, 
decomposed, or eroded. Some of them also exhibit flaking, 
and others shallow pits of circular or polygonal shape 
measuring up to about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, 
and rarely more than about one-eighth of an inch in depth. 
The pits occur singly or are arranged in reticulated groups, 
and occasionally extend below the usual decomposed layer into 
the apparently unaltered flint. Bulbs of percussion and pits 
sometimes occur on the same specimen, and generally the 
whole surface of the flint is uniformly patinated or stained. 
Although there is no evidence that this district was invaded 
by any of the great ice-sheets that approached from several 
directions, the flints lying on or near the surface must have 
been exposed during the Glacial period to an Arctic climate 
and the changes due to seasonal and other variations of tempera- 
ture, to the action of moisture, to the impact of wind and stream- 
borne sand and gravel, and to other conditions favourable to 
decomposition, fracture, and erosion, the effects of which are 
seen in the impaired state of almost all the varieties of flints 
in the superficial deposits. 
Important exceptions to this condition are the fresh black 
flints that occur in the weathered surface of the Lower Lias 
Clay between Compton Scorpion and Aston Magna, which, 
for reasons given in a previous paper, I have not classified as 
Drift ( Proc . Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club, Vol. xx., 
part 2 (1919), pp. 105-7). Many of these are of large size, 
