35 and 36. Flint implements from the peat of the valley of the 
Somme, near Abbeville, presented to Dr. H. P. Blackmore 
and Mr. E. T. Stevens, by M. Boucher de Perthes, as also 
Nos. 11 and 26, in Case P. 
37 to 40. Fragments of rude hand-made pottery, found by Dr. H. 
P. Blackmore, in a held at Peter sfinger, near Salisbury, with 
specimens Nos. 32 and 33 and 41 to 84 in this Case, and 
Nos. 1 to 61 in Case R, as well as the rude hand-made pot 
No. in Wall Case . Pieces of charcoal and a few frag¬ 
ments of ox bones were found scattered through the soil near 
the spot where the pot was discovered—but no human bones 
were found. 
As illustrating the other specimens in this Case, and some in 
Case R, it may be well to allude to the mode of making arrow- 
points, spear-points, and knives, from flint and certain other sub¬ 
stances, by taking advantage of the conchoidal or shell-shaped 
fracture of the material; by this method, combined with a certain 
amount of dexterity acquired by practice, a knife or an arrow- 
point can be made with a single blow, although the block or core 
(see plate 4, fig. 1), from which a single blow could produce such 
a flake, must be first formed. Every human-made flake tells of 
at least two rough outside flakes having been struck off previously 
from the block of flint, whilst flakes of the second series—those 
which exhibit a flat rib upon the middle of their outer surface (see 
plate 4, fig. 4), have required three previous flakes to be struck off, 
and remember all these flakes have been struck off in one deter¬ 
minate direction, with one sole object in view throughout the 
entire process—namely, the formation of the implement. Thus, 
the merest fragment of a flint flake tells its tale of human work¬ 
manship as plainly as the more finished hatchet. 
The flaking of materials possessing this property appears to be 
nearly universal with people in their “ stone age” sometimes even 
flint was obtained in barter, when it could be procured in no other 
way ; sorrowing friends stored up by the lifeless body little heaps 
of flint flakes for use in the future state. In modern times, 
bottle glass, thrown upon the shore by the waves, has been 
turned to account by savage tribes, even (as in Australia) supersed¬ 
ing the use of quartz for knives (see No. 15, Case Y), and for giving 
a jagged edge to spears. In America the Aztecs used obsidian, 
which flakes even more readily than flint, and Nos. 32 and 33 oo 
the diagram are examples of spears from New Caledonia, both 
tipped with flakes of obsidian. Not only are flakes found, but also 
the cores or nuclei from which the flakes have been struck off. 
Fig. 1, plate 4, is the representation of a well-defined example of a 
flint-core, from a specimen in the Museum of the Royal Irish 
Academy—a flake from such a core is figured by its side, and both 
are of the natural size. Our own neighbourhood, however, 1ms 
