removing the chalk which had fallen in, the end of the gallery came in view. The flint had been hollowed out in three places, and in front of two of these recesses, pointing towards the half-excavated stone, were two deer- horn picks, lying just as they had been left, still coated with chalk dust, on which was in one place plainly visible the print of the workman's hand. The tools had evidently been left at the close of a day's work; during the night the gallery had fallen in, and they had never been recovered.
"It was a most impressive sight," says Canon Greenwell, "and one never to be forgotten, to look, after a lapse, it may be, of three thousand years, upon a piece of work unfinished, with the tools of the workmen still lying where they had been placed so many centuries ago."
Deer-horn picks have been found in other localities, where chalk has been worked for flint, and also in the Cornish Tin Stream Works.[1] Near Spiennes also, in Belgium, there are extensive workings, consisting of a system of shafts and galleries, very like those of Grimes' Graves. These have been described by MM. Malaise, Briart, Cornet, and Houzeau de Lehaie.[2] Many tools of deers' horns have been obtained, but they are of a very different character, having been apparently used as hammers, the horn being cut off just above the brow tine, which served as a handle.
In addition to the deer-horn picks, a few adze-shaped tools of flint have been discovered in Grimes' Graves, and a basalt hatchet, in form resembling that represented in fig. 106, but with an oblique cutting edge, the marks of which were distinctly seen upon the sides of the gallery, showing that it had been used in excavating the chalk.
As already mentioned, it was important, in the manufacture of flint implements, to have the flint of a good quality, free from cracks and flaws, and easily accessible. Hence, places which fulfilled these conditions were
