Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/119

Rh I have also a large specimen in form more resembling Fig. 23, six inches long. It is ground at the edge, which is nearly semicircular, and along the sides. It was found at Thurston, Suffolk, and is formed of a piece of tough mica-schist, with garnets in it, a material, no doubt, derived from the Glacial beds of that district. Another from Troston, in the same neighbourhood, is formed from a rough fragment of micaceous grit ground to an edge at one end. In Scotland some wedge-shaped blades of granite, exhibiting traces of a very small amount of artificial adaptation, have been found. Two such, from Aberdeenshire, described as axes, have been figured. The small stone celts found in Orkney, though tolerably sharp at the edge, are described as- rough on the sides.

Turning to foreign countries, the discovery of flint instruments of this class, ground at the edge only, or on some small portions of their surface, is, as has already been observed, not uncommon in France and Belgium. In Denmark they are also very abundant, but the most common Danish form with a thick rectangular section does not appear to occur in Britain. Among the North American stone hatchets, many present this feature of being ground at the edge only, and the same is the case with some of the tools of the native Australians, such as that engraved in Fig. 105. A rough celt from Borneo, ground at the edge only, has been engraved by General Pitt Rivers. The type also occurs in India and Japan.

In all European countries instruments of this form and character, but made of other materials than flint, are, like those entirely unground, of very rare occurrence. This rarity may arise from two causes, the one, that the tools or weapons made of these materials have not so sharp a cutting edge produced by chipping only as those formed of flint; and the second, that being usually somewhat softer than flint it required less time and trouble to grind them all over.

None of the rough celts, nor those ground at the edge only, seem so well adapted for use as hand-tools without a haft, as do some of those which are polished all over. Looking, however, at some of the rough Australian tools which are hafted with gum in a piece of skin, and thus used in the hand, it is hardly safe to express a decided opinion. The majority were, notwithstanding, in all probability, mounted with shafts after the manner of axes or adzes.