Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/362

tically the same dimensions, was found at Pentrefoelas,^[1] Denbighshire. A third specimen, 31/2 inches long and 21/4 inches wide, was found at Lean Low, near Newhaven, Derbyshire, and is in the Bateman collection.^[2]

In my own collection are two very fine and perfect specimens of this class of instrument, both from the neighbourhood of Cambridge. The larger of these is 41/4 inches long, 23/4 inches broad at one end, and 25/8 inches at the other. The ends are ground to a regular sweep, and the sides are somewhat hollowed. It has been made from a very broad thin flake, and is ground over nearly the whole of the outer and over part of the inner face, and brought to a sharp edge all round. It was found in Burwell Fen. The smaller instrument has been even more highly finished in the same manner, every trace of the original chipping of the convex face having been removed by grinding. The edge is sharp all round, but the ends are more highly curved than in the larger instrument. It is 31/4 inches long, 21/8 inches broad at one end, and 17/8 inches at the other, and was found in Quy Fen. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of what appears to have been another of these instruments, ground on both faces and sharp at the edges, from Lakenheath.

Fig. 256.—Kempston. 1/2

I have the half of another, 2 inches wide, found near Bridlington, and one of the same character, but oval in outline, from the same place. The latter has lost one of its ends. Its original dimensions must have been about 3 inches in length by 17/8 inches in extreme breadth, and 3/16 inch in thickness. Both faces are coarsely ground, the striæ running crossways of the blade. The edges appear to have been sharpened on a finer stone. It has been supposed that these instruments were intended to serve for dressing^[3] the flesh side of skins, or for flaying-knives.^[4] Mr. Albert Way has called attention to the analogy they present to an unique bronze implement found at Ploucour,^[5] Brittany.

The beautifully-formed instrument shown in Fig. 256 belongs apparently to the same class. It was found at Kempston, near Bedford, and was kindly lent to me for engraving by the late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., who afterwards presented it to the Blackmore Museum.^[6] It is of dark flint, the two faces equally convex, and neatly chipped out but not polished. Regarding it as of triangular form, with the apex rounded, the edges on what may be described as the two sides in the

1. Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 414; xvii. p. 171.
2. "Cat.," p. 66, No. 18.
3. Bateman, "Cat.," p. 66.
4. Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 414; xvii. p. 171.
5. Arch. Camb., 3rd. S., vol. vi. p. 138.
6. "Flint Chips," p. 75.