Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/198

176 in contact with modern agricultural implements, while lying on the surface of the ground. It was found at Charleston, near Bridlington. It is unground except at the edge, where it is very sharp, and at one or two places along the sides, where slight projections have been removed or rounded off by grinding. The butt-end is truncated, but is not at all battered, so that if a hammer or mallet was used with it, without the intervention of a socket or handle, it was probably of wood. I have another specimen of rather smaller size from the same locality. It is, however, of porphyritic greenstone, and the butt-end, instead of being truncated, has been chipped to a comparatively sharp edge, which has subsequently been partially rounded by grinding. If used as a chisel at all, this implement must have been inserted in a socket.

Mr. H. Durden had a chisel of the same character found at Hod Hill, Dorset, 5 inches long, and 1 inches broad, with the sides ground straight.

The Greenwell Collection contains a flint chisel of this form 5 inches long and inch broad, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. It is ground at the sides as well as at the edge. Another, 4 inches long, in the same collection, was found at North Stow, Suffolk. There is also a small chisel of hone-stone, 2 inches long, found at Rudstone, near Bridlington, and another 3 inches long, of subquadrate section, found in a barrow at Cowlam, Yorkshire.

The form occurs in France. A beautiful chisel (7 inches), polished all over, and brought to a narrow edge at either end, was found in the Camp de Catenoy (Oise). It is nearly round in section. Another, of dark jade-like material (4 inches), polished all over, was obtained from a dolmen at Pornic (Loire Inférieure).

There are occasionally found some small chisels apparently intended for holding in the hand, as if for carving wood. One of these, from Dalton, on the Yorkshire Wolds, and in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, is shown in Fig. 111. It is of grey flint, slightly curved longitudinally, nearly semicircular in section, with the side angles rounded, the butt truncated, but all its sharp angles worn or ground away, and with a circular edge slightly gouge-like in character. It has been ground transversely or obliquely on both faces, but the striæ from the grinding are at the edge longitudinal. I have a nearly similar tool from West Stow, Suffolk (5 inches), and one from the neighbourhood of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but the butt-end is broken.

Another flint chisel, from the same neighbourhood, 3 inches long and inch wide, in my collection, presents the peculiarity of having the butt-end ground to a sharp narrow semicircular edge, the principal edge at the other end being broader and less curved. There can be