two pounds in weight, made either of iron or of iron faced with steel.
2. A well-hardened steel flaking hammer, bluntly pointed at each end, and weighing about a pound, or more; or in its place a light oval hammer, known as an "English" hammer, the pointed flaking hammer having been introduced from France.
3. A square-edged trimming or knapping hammer, which may either be in the form of a disc, or oblong and flat at the end, made of steel not hardened. In England, this hammer is usually made from a portion of an old flat file perforated to receive the helve, and drawn out at each end into a thin blade, about 116 of an inch in thickness; the total length being about 7 or 8 inches.
4. A chisel-shaped "stake" or small anvil set vertically in a block of wood, which at the same time forms a bench for the workman. In England, the upper surface of this stake is about 14 inch thick, and inclined at a slight angle to the bench.
The method of manufacture[1] is as follows:—A block of flint is broken by means of the quartering hammer in such a manner as to detach masses, the newly-fractured surfaces of which are as nearly as possible plane and even. One of these blocks is then held in the left hand, so that the edge rests on a leathern pad tied on the thigh of the seated workman, the surface to be struck inclining at an angle of about 45°. A splinter is then detached from the margin by means of the flaking hammer. If the flint is of good quality, this splinter may be three or four inches in length, the line of fracture being approximately parallel to the exterior of the flint. There is, of course, the usual bulb of percussion, or rounded protuberance at the end,[2] where the blow is given, and a corresponding depression is left in the mass of flint. Another splinter is next detached, by a blow given at a distance of about an inch on one side of the spot where the first blow fell, and then others at similar distances, until some portion of the block assumes a more or less regular polygonal outline. As the splinters which are first detached usually show a portion of the natural crust of the flint upon them, they are commonly
- ↑ An account of the process of making gun-flints, written by the late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., has been published in Stevens' "Flint Chips," p. 578. A set of gun-flint makers' tools is in the Musée de St. Germain, and the process of manufacture has been described by M. G. de Mortillet ("Promenades," p. 69). An account of a visit to Brandon is given by Mr. E. Lovett in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xxi p. 206, and an article on "Flint-Knapping," by Mr. H. F. Wilson, is in the Magazine of Art, 1887, p. 404.
- ↑ See postea p. 273.
