Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/511

Rh comb-like instruments, all belonging to the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period, and in some cases to a later date. But he also describes three special kinds of flint or chert instruments, to which he calls particular attention. 1st. Flakes pointed at one end. 2nd. Oblong double-edged splinters truncated at each end, which he thinks may "have been employed as knives or chisels for dividing and shaping wood, and which exhibit the marks of wear on their edges;" and 3rd. "Oval-shaped discs chipped round to an edge, from 2 to 3 inches across, and some of them diminished to a point, like wedges. This part in these specimens was observed to be blunted, apparently from knocking like a hammer against hard bodies, while the sides, which in such an operation would not be used, still remained sharp." The modification in the substance of the flint of which these instruments are composed is noticed, and it is stated that at their transverse fracture many are porous and absorbent, adhering to the tongue, like fossil bones, and so closely that they support their weight.

Though evidently in dread of recording facts not quite in accordance with Dr. Buckland's views, he states distinctly that the true position of these implements was below the bottom of the stalagmite; and it is not a little remarkable that among the nine specimens selected for engraving by Mr. MacEnery, and given in his Plate T, as knives, arrow-heads, and hatchets of flint and chert found in Kent's Hole, Torquay, three are of a distinctly palæolithic type, and two presumably so, the others being mere flakes, but of a character quite in accordance with their belonging to the same period as the better-defined types.

He further observes that "none of the cavern blades appeared to have been rubbed or polished, but exhibit the rough serrated edge of the original fracture. This difference alone may not be sufficient to authorize us in assigning to the cavern reliques a higher antiquity, but the absence of other Druidical remains at the depth where the flints abound, is a negative confirmation." That one who observed so well should, out of deference to the prejudices of others, have sometimes been doubtful of the evidence of his own eyes, and have been driven to postpone until too late the publication of the records of his observations, must ever be a cause of regret to all lovers of science and of truth.

The next explorer of the cavern was Mr. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., who in 1840 communicated a paper on the