Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/536

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514
CAVE IMPLEMENTS.
[CHAP. XXII.

face of the flint has been left untouched over the greater part of the butt-end, which is roughly cylindrical, and more truncated than is usual with chalk flints, but is well adapted for being held in the hand. This implement has had the pointed end broken off by an irregularly diagonal fracture rather more than half way along it, and the butt-end has subsequently split up lengthways with what may be termed a "faulted" line of fracture; and about a quarter of it has been lost.

Fig. 409.—Brixham Cave. 1/2

The fractures are evidently of very ancient date; but what is most remarkable is that the butt-end was found in August, 1858, 3 feet deep in the cave-earth in the Flint Knife Gallery, and the point was not found until nearly a month afterwards, a long distance away in the Pen Gallery, at a depth of 3 feet 6 inches in the same bed. It was not until some time afterwards that it was discovered that the two fragments fitted each other, or that the true character of the implement was seen. In general form it closely resembles one type of the pointed instruments from the Valley-gravels. In fact, it is in all essential points identical with them, and agrees in character with many of the implements from the breccia of Kent's Cavern—especially with one (No. 7,328) which might have been made by the same hand—while it differs materially in form from the flat ovoid implements from the cave--