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basis the ratio of lost axes to the savage population would be as six millions 
to one. 
I have thus given in a condensed form the evidence of the flints them- 
selves ; it remains to produce the testimony of their belongings. 
The Drift “Implements,” — their Surroundings. 
If we should happen to find on the surface of a chalk down a rough flint 
which appeared to have been used as a strike-light, the evidence of its 
association with man at best would be but dubious and uncertain ; if we 
' ound the same rough flint in a kist-vaen, the probability would be much 
greater that such had been its use ; but if we found it in a hut-circle, care- 
fully placed with other recognised tools of man, then there would be the 
highest probability that the flint had been used as an implement to minister 
to man’s wants. 
From this point of view, what is the nature and value of the evidence 
deducible from the surroundings of the Drift “ implements,” — does it indicate 
their artificial character, or does it testify to their natural formation ? This 
is the case we now have to try. 
1. Both the flahes and the “ implements ” are in a section, found in true 
geological stratum. — In Cornwall and Devon, at the base of the soil, and mixed 
with the top of the more clayey subsoil, there is generally found a thin layer 
of angular crushed stones, not strictly related to the rock below, but derived 
in pari) from it, and in part drifted ; and this is more especially the case where 
veins of quartz abound, for here the general denudation of the country has 
carried away the softer materials, but the hard crystalline quartz has resisted 
the abrasion, and has been left scattered over the then surface of the ground 
before the true soil was deposited ; which is, as Mr. Trimmer correctly 
describes it, “the warp of the Drift.” The crushed quartz is especially 
plentiful on the barren hills of Cornwall, and in reclaiming this down-land 
the Cornish farmer trenches it deeply, digs out the “ cold spar,” and piles it 
up by the roads and fences, in the same manner as the French cultivator at 
Pressigny carts off the flakes and cores. The subsoil flakes occupy the same 
geological position as this broken quartz, and indeed they both are often 
mixed together in the same bed, and this pell-mell mixture of the crushed 
fragments is very observable on the projecting headlands on the north coast 
of Cornwall. At Trevalga Head, the powerful beat of the Atlantic spray 
has weathered off the thin soil and left the pieces of quartz and the flakes of 
flint mingled in one mass on the surface. On the inland rugged granite 
moors, up to the time of the introduction of lucifer-matches, the Cornish 
tinner was in the habit of picking out of the subsoil the flint flakes as strike- 
lights for his pipe. I will only further mention that at Cissbury Hill, 
Pressigny le Grand, and Spiennes, the flakes lie in a thicker stratum, and 
their geological belongings are yet more obvious. 
Turning now to the so-called axes of the Somme type, we find their 
c 2 
