It is, however, difficult if not impossible, always to determine whether the chipping away of the edge of a flake is merely the result of use, or whether it is intentional. There can be no doubt that for many purposes the acute edge of a flake, as originally formed, was too delicate and brittle, and that it was therefore re-worked by subsequent chipping, so as to make the angle more obtuse, and thus strengthen the edge of the tool. It is curious to observe how rarely the edges of flakes were sharpened by grinding. It was probably considered less troublesome to form a new flake than to sharpen an old one; in the same way as it is recorded that the Mexican barbers threw away their obsidian flakes as soon as they were dull and made use of new ones. Dr. E. B. Tylor, in the free translation of the passage in Torquemada relating to these razors, appears, as has been pointed out by Messrs. Daubrée and Roulin,[1] to have fallen into a mistake in representing them to have been sharpened on a hone, the original author having merely said that the edge of the obsidian flakes was as keen as if they had been forged in iron, ground on a stone, and finished on a hone.
British flakes with ground edges are by no means common. One from Yorkshire, in my own collection, is a thin, flat, external flake, having both edges (which are parallel) ground from both faces to an angle of about 60°. It has, unfortunately, been broken square across, about 2 inches from the butt-end, and is 1 inch wide at the fracture. Another, from Bridlington, is an ovate flat external flake, produced, not by art, but by natural fracture, and having one side brought to a sharp edge by grinding on both faces. With the exception of its being partially chipped into shape at both ends, this grinding is all that has been done to convert a mere splinter of flint into a serviceable tool. It is an interesting example of the selection of a natural form, where adapted for a particular purpose, in preference to making the whole implement by hand. The small celt, Fig. 31, affords an analogous instance. In the Green well Collection are also two or three very rude flakes from the Yorkshire Wolds, which are ground at some portion of their edges.
In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord Londesborough[2] found, with other relics, a delicate knife made from a flake of flint, 414 inches long, and dexterously ground. A trimmed flake, like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, like Fig. 276, were "also present. The whole are now in the British Museum.
A flake, from Charleston, in the East Riding, presented to me by Canon Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangular section, slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have
