been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on the inner and outer faces of the flake. The point, which is irregular in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. It seems well adapted for use as a knife when held between the ball of the thumb and the end of the first finger, without the intervention of any handle.
Fig. 196.—Charleston. 12
Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp edge along one side, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now in mine. It was found near Thetford.
Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near Chislet, Kent, with both edges completely blunted by grinding, perhaps in scraping stone.
I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully ground, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, and another ridged flake, 238 inches long, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, one side of which has been carefully ground at the edge. I found it in a field of my own, in the parish of Abbot's Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell obtained another 212 inches long, ground on both edges, from Mildenhall Fen.
I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth; and another, from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank Buckland.
A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as to form "a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long," was found by Dr. Thurnam,[1] with many other worked flints, in the chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully ground at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[2] at Everley.
An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a great part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is in the museum at Truro.
A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is recorded as having been found, with twenty other flint implements or tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near Pickering.[3] A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.[4]
A few flat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered in Scotland. One 212 inches long was found at Cromar,[5] Aberdeenshire; and a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness,[6] in company with a polished perforated hammer and other objects.
Irish flakes are rarely sharpened by grinding. I have, however, one of Lydian stone,[7] found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge at the end.
In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the Lake--