8 
4. The flakes are the result of the natural fracture of the flint nodule. I 
gathered from a heap of flints undesignedly broken for the repair of the 
roads at Menchecourt, most perfect flint-flake knives, and long, thm, 
delicately formed “ arrow-heads ” of the most perfect forms. I have 
shattered flint-nodules branching in all directions, and all the fractures are 
longitudinal, and all the points run into the arrow-headed form I have 
examined and studied the angular flint gravel of the south of England, t e 
crushed and shattered flints of the Isle of Wight, of the North and South 
Downs, of the Norfolk drift, and the gravel-pits and surface flints ot 
Belgium and France ; and I find that everywhere the split and shattered 
flints have a natural tendency to run to the arrow-headed form with sharp 
cutting edges at the sides. e . 
Their Origin— It is often put forward as a strong conclusive argument in 
support of the human workmanship of the flakes, that they are found m 
places far removed from the natural home of flint in the chalk ; and that 
they must therefore have been carried to their present sites by man. Thus 
M. Dupont infers that the flakes in the Belgium caverns were brought from 
the South of France, and indicate an ancient trade in flint between these 
countries, ignoring the fact that the flakes are abundant in the soil of Namur, 
and I have found them near Mons over the Loess in a stratum six inches 
thick, and scattered by denudation over the surface below. In like manner 
Sir 0. Lyell, writing of the profusion of flakes in the Swiss lake-dwellings, 
infers that the flint “must have come from a distance, probably from the 
South of France.” (. Antiquity of Man , p. 20.) Again, the fact is over- 
looked that a broad band of cretaceous rocks passes along the south of 
Switzerland at the base of the Alps, and at the head of the valleys whose 
rivers feed the lakes, from whence these shattered flints and gravel have 
more probably been swept by denudation into the lakes below. These 
cretaceous beds are shown on the Geological Map of Europe by Murchison, 
and more fully in detail by the large Geological Map of Switzerland lately 
published, which shows that the N.W. shore of the lake of Neuchatel 
(where the flakes abound, and on which there are twelve lake-settlements) is 
formed of these flint-bearing beds. The same fanciful ongm has been 
suggested for the flakes found at Croyde, but a more searching and com- 
prehensive knowledge of their geological surroundings [leads to a different 
and more scientific conclusion. 
Along the whole coast-line of Devon and Cornwall are found patches of 
drift of which good sections are exposed by the beat of the waves in the low- 
lands of sheltered bays, and similar beds cap the cliff in more exposed situa- 
tions. The bases of these beds contain boulders of foreign rocks which 
indicate their origin ; at Croyde these drift-beds contain water-worn pebbles 
and boulders of granite, many varieties of trap, portions of basaltic columns 
with the angles rounded, and numerous rolled chalk flints ; these drift-beds 
have been traced south-westward along the whole of the Cornish coast-line. 
I have further found them on the Scilly Isles, and this trail of flints may be 
traced over these barren islets to at least 100 feet above the present level of 
