Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/126

A few specimens of this form, both unground and ground merely at the edge, have already been mentioned, and specimens engraved, as Figs. 21 and 36. Hatchets expanding towards the edge are of more common occurrence in Denmark than in this country, though even there they are rather rare when the expansion is well-defined.

In the British Museum is a magnificent celt of this section, but in outline like Fig. 77. It is ground over nearly the whole of its surface, but the edge at each end has only been chipped out. It is made of some felspathic rock, and is no less than 145/8 inches in length. It was found near Conishead Priory, Lancashire.

The next specimens that I shall describe are also principally made of other materials than flint.

Fig. 48.—Coton, Cambridge. 1/2 Fig. 48, in my own collection, is of porphyritic greenstone, and was found at Coton, Cambridgeshire. It is polished all over, equally convex on both faces, and has the sides rather more rounded than most of those of nearly similar section in flint. The butt is rather sharper than the sides. I have an analogous implement, found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, but with the sides straighter and rather more converging towards the butt. Others have been found in the same district.

Other specimens made of greenstone have been found in the Fens, some of which are in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.

Some "stone" celts from Kate's Bridge^[1] and Digby Fen have been figured in Miller and Skertchly's "Fenland." One (7 inches) of greenstone, and apparently of this type, was found at Hartford,^[2] Hunts, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

In the Newcastle Museum is a compact greenstone celt of this character (53/4 inches) with the edge slightly oblique, found at Penrith Beacon, Cumberland. Some celts of the same general character have been found in Anglesea.^[3]

Implements of this class are frequently more tapering at the butt than the one shown in the figure. I have several such from the Cambridge Fens, and have seen an example from Towcester. One of flint (4 inches), so much rounded at the edge as to be almost oval in outline, found near Mildenhall, is in the Christy Collection. One of greenstone (41/4 inches) was found at Wormhill, Buxton, Derbyshire.

Fig. 49, of dark-grey whin-stone, is of much the same character, but has an oblique cutting edge. The butt-end is ground to a blunted

1. Pp. 577, 578.
2. Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 34.
3. Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi, p. 301.