Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/373

Rh in Quy Fen in 1849, and now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. In the same collection is a smaller specimen, 4 inches long and 1 inches wide, from Burwell Fen. This has its edges sharp, and shows the natural crust of the flint at the butt, as does also one 7 inches long by 2 inches wide, found at Jackdaw Hill, near Cambridge. Another blade (5 inches) found at Wolseys, near Dunmow, Essex, is in the British Museum. A blade of this type from a garden at Walton-on-Thames is recorded.

A remarkably fine spear-head of the notched class, 6 inches long, was exhibited some years ago to the British Archæological Association, and their Proceedings, without giving any information as to the size, shape, or character of the specimen, record as an interesting fact that it weighs nearly four ounces. It was found in Burnt Fen, Prickwillow, Ely, and is now in my own collection. It is engraved as Fig. 266. It is of black flint, and has in the first instance been boldly chipped into approximately the requisite form, and then been carefully finished by neat secondary working at the edges, no part of which has been rounded by grinding. On either side, at rather less than half way along the blade from the base, are two deep rounded indentations not quite half an inch apart, in character much like the notches between the barbs and stems of one form of flint arrow-heads. The same peculiarity is to be observed in a somewhat smaller spear-head found at Carshalton, in Surrey, and forming part of the Meyrick Collection. Of this it is observed that it "was let into a slit in the wooden shaft, and bound over with nerves diagonally from the four notches which appear on the sides." There can, I think, be little doubt of the correctness of this view, nor of the method of attachment to the shafts or handles having been much the same as that in use among the American tribes for their arrow- and lance-heads with a notch on either side. Whether the British blades were mounted with a short handle or a long shaft, we have no means of judging; but if those with the edges rounded towards the butt were knives or daggers, there seems some probability of these also having served the same purpose, though provided with handles like some North American and Mexican examples, and of their not having been spear- or lance-heads.

I have another blade of this kind found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, about 5 inches in length, and 1 inch in width. At about 3 inches from the point there is on either side a slight notch; beyond this there is a narrow projection, and then the width of the blade is suddenly reduced by a full eighth of an inch on either side, so as to leave a sort of shoulder. Between this and the butt, at intervals of about an inch, there are on each side two other notches, as if to assist in fastening the blade into a shaft or handle. There has in this case been no attempt to remove the edges by grinding.

A flint dagger (6 inches) found in the Thames, near London Bridge, has a notch on each side 2 inches from the base. A smaller notched example was found at Hurlingham.

In the Christy Collection is another of these blades, 5 inches long,