Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/285

Rh of grit, 2 inches long, with one end slightly hollowed, apparently by grinding celts, and a large flat compact laminated red sandstone pebble about 8 inches by 3 inches, with both faces ground away, the one being evenly flat and the other uneven. In the same barrow occurred one of the flint rubbers to be subsequently described, and also a quartzite pebble (2 inches long) that had been used as a hammer-stone. A portion of a whetstone of Pennant or Coal-measure sandstone was found in the long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire, in which also occurred a thin ovoidal knife of flint, ground at the edges.

I have in my own collection a very interesting specimen of this kind from Burwell Fen, near Cambridge. It is a thin slab of close-grained micaceous sandstone, about 5 by 4 inches, slightly hollowed and polished on both faces by grinding. With it were found two celts of flint, 4 and 5 inches long, of pointed oval section, one of them polished all over, and the other at the edge only, which in all probability had been sharpened on this very stone. In the same place were two long subangular fragments of greenstone of the right form, size, and character to be manufactured into celts, and which had no doubt been selected for that purpose.

A grinding-stone with a celt lying in it, found at Glenluce, Wigtownshire, has been figured.

On the Sussex Downs I have found flat pebbles 3 or 4 inches long, which have evidently been used as hones, but whether for stone or metallic tools it is impossible to say. Fragments of polished celts and numerous flakes and "scrapers" of flint were, however, in their immediate neighbourhood. Among the modern savages of Tahiti who used hatchets of basalt, a whetstone and water appear to have been always at hand, as constant sharpening was necessary. It seems probable therefore that there must have been a constant demand for such sharpening-stones in this country, and that many of them ought still to exist. With flint hatchets, the constant whetting was, however, no doubt less necessary than with those of the different kinds of basalt. Their edges, if carefully chipped, will indeed cut wood without being ground at all.

Mr. Bateman mentions "a flat piece of sandstone rubbed hollow at one side" as having been found in a barrow at Castern, Staffordshire, but it is uncertain whether this was a grindstone. It may have been used only as a mortar, for with it was a round piece of ruddle or red ochre, "which from its abraded appearance must have been in much request for colouring the skin of its owner." In a barrow on the West Coast of Kintyre, there also occurred a piece of red Lancashire or Westmoreland iron-ore or hæmatite worn flat on the side, apparently by having been rubbed upon some other substance. Nodules of ruddle are also said to