REPORT ON THE EXPLORATION OE BRIXHAM CAVE. 
552 
having been exposed to the action of the waves on the sea-shore, yet, from the excessive 
battering of some of the angles, it seems probable that it may have served as a hammer- 
stone, simply held in the hand. 
No. 29. Fragment of a large broad flake showing on its 
convex face a portion of the original crust of the flint. It 
is 2f- inches in extreme width, and appears to have been 
originally of an approximately oval outline, but has lost 
one end by a straight fracture, where the flake was 2 inches 
wide. This end appears to have been broken off in ancient 
times after the rest of the instrument had been chipped into 
shape. The fracture at the other end is more irregular 
and existed before the completion of the tool, as several 
flakes have been removed from its convex face by blows administered on the fractured 
surface. One side of the flake has been trimmed by chipping, first boldly, and then 
more minutely, to a segmental bevelled edge much resembling in character that of some 
of the large “ side scrapers ” from the cave of Le Moustier in the Dordogne, like that 
engraved in the 4 Beliquise Aquitanicre,’ a. pi. v. fig. 2. The edge presents the appearance 
of having been used for scraping some hard substance. This instrument was found 
9 feet deep in the gravel of the West Chamber. 
Implements of the same character occur occasionally, though rarely, in the old river- 
valley deposits. 
1 . Broad flake, 2^ inches long and about If- wide ; the ridge side formed with two 
facets, but a portion of the ridge at the butt-end, or that at which the blow was admi- 
nistered to dislodge the flake from its parent flint, removed ; the other end of the flake 
thick and truncated. This flake shows signs of use along a part of one of its edges. 
The other edge has been broken off, the flint being much decomposed, and the flake 
itself broken into three pieces. 
The remaining specimens consist either of flakes, more or less perfect, or of splinters and 
rough fragments of flint, by far the greater part bearing evidence of having been artificially 
produced, inasmuch as one or more of their faces show the conoidal eminence or “ bulb 
of percussion ” as it was termed by the late Dr. Falconer, or the corresponding depres- 
sion, where the blow was administered by which they were fashioned. Some of the 
splinters are very small ; and yet one of them, only f inch by ■§ inch, shows the worn edge 
resulting from its having been in use as a scraping-tool. 
The general result of the examination is that the worked flints from the Brixham 
Cave are found to present analogous, and in some cases almost identical, forms with 
those discovered in the ancient river-gravels and in other caves associated with the 
remains of animals now extinct, and that many of the implements prove not only to 
have been made by man, but to have been actually in use for cutting and scraping 
purposes before becoming imbedded in the cave-loam ; while from nearly the whole pre- 
senting some signs of human workmanship or use upon them, it is evident that their 
presence in the cave must, in some measure, be due to human agency. 
