10 
But it may yet be asked, if these flints were not broken by the band of 
man, how were the most perfect of the flakes produced ? This question may 
not admit at present of a perfectly satisfactory answer. Yet there are well- 
known forces in nature capable of producing all the phenomena which we 
have described. The finishing touches of the moulding and carving of our 
hills and valleys were undoubtedly done by glacial action ; the planing, 
rasping, and crushing power of a deep mantle of land-ice pushing its tortuous 
way to the sea, would, on the assumption that a crushed flint occasionally 
breaks into flakes, produce all the forms of flakes and cores whicn we find . 
nor is this a mere assumption, it has been tested by actual experiment. ^ y 
contractor for the formation of new roads at Eastbourne prepares the metal- 
ling by crushing large nodules of flint with “ Blake’s patent stone-breaker, 
in which a massive cast-iron jaw is worked by a steam-engine ; the machine 
breaks the flints as fast as two men can feed it, and from the 
nodules I have picked out well-formed flakes of all sizes showing the bulb 
of percussion” and “wave markings” on the fractured surface, having a 
conchoidal face on one side and an angular one on the other, and terminating 
in a bayonet point ; and also “ scrapers ” and “ cores.” And these, which 
cannot be distinguished in form from the so-called implements of the same 
type of the “ Palieolithic age,” bear the same proportion to the whole ol the 
mass, as the flakes and cores bear to the rough flints in the various coast- 
finds. . „„ , 
The evidence which I have brought forward appears to justify the con- 
elusion that the rough, unused, and generally minute flakes are of natural 
origin ; and I place with confidence these geological facts against the 
assumption of the fashionable “ flint-knife ” theory of the day. 
Cores, Discs, and Scrapers* 
A block of flint showing the loss of flakes from its sides, has been called 
a core ; and when all the available flakes have been removed by skdfully- 
dealt blows,” the nucleus is supposed to have been thrown away as useless 
Some of these cores show the loss of one flake only, others of several flakes 
from one side and a rough shattery fracture on the other side, but the more 
perfect and typical core is said to have been produced by the flmt nodule 
being first broken transversely, and the flakes afterwards struck off on every 
side,°leaving the core in the form of a small basaltic column. 
It is evident that the claim of these cores to be of human workmanship 
must stand or fall with the human manufacture of the flakes, and the 
only interest attached to them lies in the evidence which they furnish on 
th I have lately inspected a gun-flint manufactory at Brandon, and marked 
the manner in which the flakes are struck off from a block of flint, and the 
character of the core left and rejected by the flint-knappers. The block u 
first broken transversely, and in such a manner as to leave a pianesurface, 
and the flakes are then with a heavy hammer struck off by skilfully dealt 
