. The ancient stone implements, weapons, and ornaments, of Great Britain. sof alteration; but I find that -a flake of this porous white flint,which, when dry, weighed one hundred and twenty-nine grains,gained, by immersion for half an hour inwater, thirteen grains; so that, taking thespecific graA7ity of flint at about 2*6, andassuming that the flake was originally per-fectly non-absorbent, the loss would appearto have been about one-fifth of the originalweight. But to return from this digression to thesubject of the instruments, of which severalbelonging to the same class as Fig. 390 havebeen
. The ancient stone implements, weapons, and ornaments, of Great Britain. sof alteration; but I find that -a flake of this porous white flint,which, when dry, weighed one hundred and twenty-nine grains,gained, by immersion for half an hour inwater, thirteen grains; so that, taking thespecific graA7ity of flint at about 2*6, andassuming that the flake was originally per-fectly non-absorbent, the loss would appearto have been about one-fifth of the originalweight. But to return from this digression to thesubject of the instruments, of which severalbelonging to the same class as Fig. 390 havebeen found in Kents Cavern. Some ofthma are pointed at only one extremity,and that usually the point of the originalflake, the bulb-end being left more or lessobtuse. A remarkably elegant instrument of thisclass (No. 3869) is shown in Fig. 391. Ithas been made from a ridged or carinatedflake, though having three facets at the butt-end, and a littlesecondary working on one side. At the butt this outer face ofthe flake has been left in its original condition. The inner face,. Fig. 391 Kents Cavern.(3869.) i 452 CAVE IMPLEMENTS. [CHAP. XXII. however, which is shown in the figure, has had its original surfacealmost entirely removed by secondary working, extending fromthe edges to the middle of the blade, while the edges haveagain been retouched, so as to make them even and the butt-end it is chisel-like in form. It was found, July4th, 1868, at a depth of 2 feet in the cave-earth, beneathstalagmite 2 feet 8 inches thick. Portions of other, and evonlonger instruments of the same kind, have been found in thecavern. These instruments so closely resemble in character the longflakes of obsidian and other silicious stones in use as javelin-headsamong the New Caledonians and other savage tribes until thepresent day, that one is tempted to assign to them a similarpurpose.* It is possible that they may have been merely knives,or they may have served for both purposes, like the arrow-hea
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidancientstone, bookyear1872
