light shaft is inserted; both flake and shaft are next secured by tying, and then the whole of the socket and ligatures is covered up with a coating of resinous gum, occasionally decorated with zigzag and other patterns. Some flakes are mounted as daggers.
Some of the long parallel flakes also appear to have been hafted. One such, probably from Mexico, has been engraved by Aldrovandus as a culter lapideus.[1] A tool in use among the natives of Easter Island[2] consisted of a broad flake of obsidian, with a roughly chipped tang which was inserted in a slit in the handle to which it was bound, the binding being tightened by means of wooden wedges driven in under the string.
To return, however, to the flakes of flint which were used in this country for scraping or cutting purposes, at an early period, when metal was either unknown or comparatively scarce. Each flake, when dexterously made, has on either side a cutting edge, so sharp that it almost might, like the obsidian flakes of Mexico, be used as a razor. Some flakes indeed seem to have served as surgical instruments, as the practice of trephining was known in the Stone Period. So long as the edge is used merely for cutting soft substances it may remain for some time comparatively uninjured, and even if slightly jagged its cutting power is not impaired. If long in use, the sides of the blade become rather polished by wear, and I have specimens, both English and foreign, on which the polish thus produced can be observed. If the flake has been used for scraping a surface, say, for instance, of bone or wood, the edge will be found to wear away, by extremely minute portions chipping off nearly at right angles to the scraping edge, and with the lines of fracture running back from it. The coarseness of these minute chips will vary in accordance with the amount of pressure used, and the material scraped; but generally speaking, I think that I am right in saying that they are more delicate and at a more obtuse angle to the face, than the small chipping produced by the secondary working of the edge of a flake, of which I shall presently speak. In all cases where any considerable number of flakes of flint occur, such as there appears to be good reason for attributing to a remote period, a greater or less proportion of them will, on examination, be found to bear these signs of wear upon them, extending over, at all events, some portion of their edges.
