order to make the piece struck off available, it was subjected to repeated blows with the hammer or some similar instrument, till it had become of the requisite form. Even if the art of striking off these flakes cannot be considered to take a high rank, yet great dexterity was required to prepare them always in sufficient number. Our cave-dwellers found the material for these implements in the immediate neighbourhood; it is still found in no small quantity on the fields at Lohn, and also disseminated in the neighbouring rocks.[1] As the diameter of the largest flint masses in the Thayngen Jura hardly amounts to 212 inches, our flint knives are decidely inferior in size to those of the French. The colour of the stone implements found in the cave, as well as that of the flint nodules just mentioned, varies greatly; sometimes it is red, like jasper, sometimes yellow, black, green, and sometimes white; more rarely variegated in colour, so that a collection of these little knives of different colours makes a pleasant impression on the eye of the observer. We do not find in the Kesslerloch a trace of the stone celts like those found in the Swiss lake-dwellings and elsewhere. Professor Fraas, in his essays on the history of civilisation, thinks it is hardly conceivable that the inhabitants of rock caves could do without stone hammers and stone celts, and goes so far as to consider it as an accident that they are entirely wanting; but as they are not found either in the Kesslerloch or in the Swabian caves, and are also wanting in other places, I am led to the conclusion that the inhabitants of the Kesslerloch neither knew nor used this kind of stone implement. It is indeed hardly conceivable that if they had generally used these implements some few celts should not have been lost or got broken,
- ↑ A large number of 'flakes' were found by Mr. Messikomer in the rubbish-heap from the cave, which he sifted a second time. Many of those flakes were brought home by me; and my impression, as well as that of my friend Mr. Pengelly, is that nine out of ten have been derived, either directly or indirectly, from the chalk formation.
hibited the tools which were used by the natives for this purpose. The first process was to make the flint roughly into shape by a hammer of greenish jasper, not bored, but which had a groove running round the middle of it, by which it was tied with sinews very securely to a wooden handle. The other tool used is of a kind of ivory, in shape somewhat like a pistol stock, with a piece of hard reindeer horn taking the place usually occupied by the barrel, and this was very securely dove-tailed into the stock, and also tied with sinews put on wet. With this instrument the natives strike off small portions at a time from the flint, and bring it to the required form. Sir Edward Belcher stated that he had frequently seen this done, and that he had himself performed the operation. The Indians of California use the same process in making tools from obsidian. See the Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, by John Evans, 1872, pp. 34 and 35; and Reliq. Aquit. p. 18.
