XATUEE AND A^ALUE OF THE EVIDENCE. 
295 
another*. It may happen that a shattered flint (by whatever natural cause produced) 
should give flakes or splinters closely resembling simple forms produced by one or two 
blows applied artificially. But here the coincidence must cease ; for it is obvious that 
blows applied by hazard and resulting from natural causes, as in a melee of gravel, 
would necessarily multiply their direction of strike in proportion as the blows themselves 
were multiplied, and consequently the shape of the flint would tend, up to a certain 
point, to become more and more irregular ; whereas, on the contrary, blows applied by 
design, and with a given object in view, would tend to give to the flint more and more 
finish, form, and evident art. So with respect to the flints in the gravel the more broken 
the more irregular, whereas, on the contrary, with the flint-implements the more they 
are chipped and broken the clearer is the design. In many lance-head shaped speci- 
mens both sides show two plane surfaces meeting at an obtuse angle, each plane formed 
by ten to twelve parallel chips, and in these and all cases every blow or chip has distinct 
reference to the ulterior form (see figs. 6 and 8, Plates XIII. & XIV.). 
With regard to the possibility of the flint-implements resulting from natural wear, 
I have already mentioned that in many of the specimens the outer coat of the flint is 
frequently adapted and left, when possible or convenient, in the finished instrument (see 
fig. 4, Plate XIII.), and such original surfaces show so little trace of wear that small 
delicate fossils, so often found projecting on them, still remain untouched. If the flint 
had been so extensively fashioned by wear, how could one portion, and always a pro- 
minent part, have remained unworn, while other portions have been so largely abraded 
Besides, the tendency of wear, if sufiiciently long continued, is ultimately to reduce the 
flints to the rounded form of pebbles, a condition of things incompatible with the reten- 
tion of the sharp points and cutting edges of these implements. 
But it is not so much upon the improbability of the chances of natural causes pro- 
ducing such forms, as upon the unity of character and evident object in the design, that 
the argument of artificial make is the strongest. Even if some natural cause did tend to 
produce deceptive forms, it would be, as before mentioned, according to some one given 
simple type, such as the flint knives or single flakes ; but in these implements we And 
three principal types J, — one, lance-shaped (fig. 8); a second, almond-shaped (fig. 5); 
and a third smaller form, a flattened ovoid (fig. 1), (Plate XII. to XIV.). In length they 
vary from 2 to II inches, a medium size being the most general. These forms are con- 
stant, and each type presents a nearly constant relation between the length and breadth 
of the specimens. In A there is a sharp point, with a central, and often high, midrib 
on either side ; in B we find a rounded cutting end, the sides flatter, and the midrib is 
less marked. In both forms one end is generally large and blunt, and the side-edges 
sharp ; and advantage is taken, at the blunt end, of the original outer surface and form 
* Or as tlie gun-flint makers observe, “ fliat has no grain.” It has not in fact the slightest cleavage. 
t Where they have undergone wear in the gravel, they, like the ordinary flints, have their edges blunted 
and are irregularly broken, and they are not unfrequently truncated at the point. 
X Besides some minor ones, as flint-flakes, and the leaf-shaped implements of Mautort (figs. 2,3, Plate XII.). 
2 R 2 
