their tools—picks made out of stags' antlers (Fig. 101), polished stone celts, which fitted to the marks in the sides of the galleries, chisels of bone and antler, and little cups made of chalk evidently intended to contain grease for the supply of light. In one spot the roof had given way, and the tools were found just as they had been left at the working face by the miner, who was prevented from returning by the blocking up of the gallery.
Fig. 101.—Miner's pick, Grimes Graves, 18.
On clearing this out, and when the end came in view, "it was seen that the flint had been worked out in three places at the end, forming three hollows extending beyond the chalk face of the end of the gallery. In front of two of these hollows were laid two picks, the handle of each towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines pointing towards each other, showing, in all probability, that they had been used respectively by a right and a left handed man. The day's work over, the men had laid down each his tool, ready for the next day's work; meanwhile the roof had fallen in, and the picks had never been recovered. I learnt from the workmen that it would not have been safe to excavate farther in that direction, the chalk at the point being broken up by
the time of James the Second, in obtaining the iron ore, which made the iron trade of Kent and Sussex of such importance down to the close of the seventeenth century. The large woods in the neighbourhood of Hastings, in the direction of Battle, Brede, and Ashburnham, mark to a great extent the broken ground caused by these excavations, which cover considerable areas, and render them worthless to the farmer.
