Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/306

278 cracks so as to prevent the roof from standing firm. It was a most impressive sight, and one never to be for- gotten, to look, after a lapse it may be of 3000 years, upon a piece of work unfinished, with the tools of the workmen still lying where they had been placed so many centuries ago. Between the picks was the skull of a bird, but none of the other bones. These two picks, as was the case with many of those found elsewhere, had upon them an incrustation of chalk, the surface of which bore the impression of the workmen's fingers, the print of the skin being most apparent. This had been caused by the chalk with which the workmen's hands became coated being transferred to the handle of the pick."

In one of the pits was a large accumulation of the bones of animals, which were for the most part broken for the sake of their marrow, of the Celtic short-horn, the sheep or goat, the horse, the pig, and the dog. The bones of the short-horns belonged, with scarcely an exception, to young calves, while those of the dog belonged to aged animals, which were eaten by their masters after having become too old for hunting.

Another example of flint-mining on a large scale is offered by the shafts and galleries at Cissbury, a camp on a commanding position of the South Downs, about three miles from Worthing, explored by General Lane Fox, Mr. Ernest Willett, and others. The surface of the ground in and around the circular depressions (see Fig. 102) is covered by innumerable splinters and by