FLINT IMPLEMENTS FOUND IN KENT'S CAVERN. 395 
the northern entrance, below the continuous and unbroken Floor of 
Stalagmite 16 inches thick, November 27th, 1866. The marks of 
the tool with which it was scraped into shape are distinctly visible 
on it. 
Fig. 6 (No. 1847, Cave. Jour., and Fig. 408, Evans,) represents 
a bone ‘‘needle” having a well-drilled circular eye, but unfor- 
tunately without its lower or pointed end. It is slightly taper in 
form and elliptical in transverse section. Its greatest diameter at 
the larger end is about ‘075 inch, and where broken about ‘05 inch, 
so that its original length was probably about 2°55 inches. The 
eye is capable of receiving thread of about three-eightieths of an 
inch in diameter, or of the thickness of fine twine. This interest- 
ing specimen was found in the Black Band, beneath the Floor of 
Granular Stalagmite, December 4th, 1866; but at that time, being 
almost entirely enveloped in stalagmite from which the 
broken end alone projected, it was supposed ‘to be merely 
a small bone of no particular interest, and its true character — 
was not discovered for nearly two years. During the 
interval the ‘‘find,” of which it was one specimen, had 
been placed by itself in a box, as in all other cases, and 
packed away in a room set apart for the Cavern specimens. Fig. 6. 3 
On 24th September, 1868, whilst I was preparing the osseous 
contents of a number of boxes for the inspection of Mr. Boyd 
Dawkins, one of the paleontologists on the Cavern Committee, the 
investing stalagmite fell off this specimen whilst it was in my hand, 
and at once disclosed the true character of what had been put aside 
as nothing more than a small ordinary bone. Though it has received 
the name of a ‘‘needle” it would probably be more correctly termed 
a ‘*bodkin,” as being too slender to force a passage through skins 
of animals—and there is no reason to suppose that there were any 
contemporary textile fabrics,—it was probably employed to carry 
threads through holes made with bone awls, such as that represented 
in fig. 5. 
‘‘Such needles,’ says Mr. Evans, ‘‘have been found in con- 
siderable numbers in the caves of the age of La Madelaine, such 
as Les Eyzies, Laugerie Basse, Bruniquel, and the lower cave of 
Mageate cu 4s ‘They vary in length from 31 inches to 1 inch, and 
some have been found that show that, after they had been acci- 
dentally broken through the eye, a fresh eye was drilled. That 
this could readily be effected by means of a pointed flint was 

