There would appear to be considerable difference in the relative proportion of rubbed to chipped specimens found at different places. Sir J. Lubbock writes that "those found in Denmark are sometimes polished, but almost, if not quite as often left rough. On the contrary, in other parts of North-Western Europe, the axes are usually ground to a more or less smooth surface." Now, in Hampshire, so far as an opportunity has been afforded of forming an opinion, the chipped implements largely predominate, two rubbed axes only having been found during the course of two years, while the flaked ones have been picked up in considerable quantity, In one of these polished specimens, the rubbing has not obliterated the chip-marks. This is not uncommon, for there is no doubt that the rubbed tools were first flaked into rude outline and subsequently polished, the rubbers employed in the process being sometimes met with alongside the rubbed implements. Pieces of broken polished flint occasionally occur which have the appearance of having been subsequently wrought, and are evidently fragments of axes which had fractured in use and had afterwards been converted into some other tool by flaking.

As a rule the implements met with in this neighbourhood do not occur diffused about the fields indiscriminately, although occasional cores and flakes turn up here and there in a great number of the fields, but are found to occupy particular places. I have sometimes walked several miles without meeting with more than an occasional rude flake, and then have lighted on a spot where over perhaps fifty square yards of surface implements lay scattered in abundance. In an area of 18,000 acres, the greater part of which has been pretty well investigated, three or four such places of resort may be enumerated, and these chiefly occur on the brows overlooking the watercourses. From this it might be conjectured that the rude workmen who frequented these places, and who had not advanced beyond the use of flint, with perhaps a scanty supply of metal, and very rude pottery, must have found it difficult to pioneer for water. It has occurred to me as not unlikely that the occasional spots, where only a few scattered implements are found, represent places

1 Pre-historic Times, p. 69,

where, during hunting excursions, a temporary halt was made under emergency in order to replenish the bag; while the sites where worked flints are abundantly diffused throughout the soil were visited for the express purpose of manufacture.

Of these latter places the most important one occupies a considerable area in an open field, known as Breach-field, situated on a hill about a quarter of a mile north-east of the Upper Test Valley, and immediately overlooking the village of St. Mary Bourne; the field having formed part of Eggbury Down till 1772, when it became arable.

Implements have been found here in considerable abundance, and represent most of the commonly received types of the so-named celts or axes, arrow-head and spear-head flakes, scrapers, slingstones, awls, drills, hammers, crushers and pot-boilers; and they are evidently diffused throughout the soil as fresh specimens appear after heavy rain. They are with few exceptions rude, and bear a family likeness, as if the work of some particular sub-tribe or family. Many of the specimens have the appearance of porcelain, showing that they must have been long in contact with the soil, and exposed to the action of the rain and air. The cores or refuse from which flakes of various kinds have been removed, are proportionately more abundant than the flakes themselves, evidencing perhaps that a large number of the latter had been used, or at all events taken from the place of manufacture. A good deal of the material is merely such waste as one would expect to find resulting from long past labour in the shaping of useful tools. It is remarkable that among so large a number of flaked flints no rubbed specimen should have been met with.

On a hill situated on the north of Breach-field, and separated from it by the Warwick Vale, a tributary to the Test Valley, flint implements again occur. They are here sparingly scattered for some distance along the crest of the range, and are coarser in character than those from Breach-field; the scrapers being much larger and not so carefully edged. Here a heavy quern-stone or grain-rubber was ploughed up a short time ago. It is of finegrained sandstone, convex and rudely chipped on its under surface,

concave on its upper, and showing evident marks of polishing by friction. Near it several rudely wrought discoid flints were found, resembling slingstones, but much larger; and as the angles of one or two of them are rounded off by attrition, it is not unlikely that they had been used for mullers.

A third site occupies the crest of a hill on the west of the Test Valley, and immediately overlooking the hamlet of Stoke. The implements are here better wrought, the axes being smaller, and neatly chipped. The scrapers are nearly all circular or oval, and the flakes longer and more shapable, and were evidently struck with greater care and dexterity. The site extends for about 100 yards by the side of a copse, a part of which was not long since grubbed; and it is singular that not a single specimen of any kind occurs on the newly grubbed ground. This would appear to testify that the wood must have been in existence at the time when the implements were manufactured.

It has been previously stated that the implements consist of celts or axes, scrapers, awls, drills, slingstones, &c.; these being the names by which they are commonly known, But we should be careful in assigning any particular uses to such implements, as very little is really known about them; and as Mr. Evans stated in his excellent address, at the late opening of the Blackmore Museum, at Salisbury, the form of any implement should not always be received as indicating the use to which it was applied. We may, however, glean some knowledge of the purposes for which they were shaped by a comparison of them with implements of similar form and material, used by savages at the present day. Such an exemplification is furnished by the Salisbury collection, where tools and weapons, in various kinds of stone, from different parts of the world, are arranged so that the modern implement may be the exponent of the ancient one.

Of the scraper, a small flint tool commonly met with wherever implements abound, I have found six or seven types. They vary in length from one to six inches, and in shape are more or less oval or round. A few are adze-shaped and considerably curved, and appear to have been used after the manner of the carpenters

bentshave. Some again are long and straight-sided, others are semilunar in outline, while in another type they are wrought at both ends as if with the intention of forming a double implement. They have received their name from their resemblance to similar stone implements used by the Esquimaux in preparing the skins of animals which they use for clothing.

Respecting the celts or hatchets the types are also various; some being shaped alike at both ends, the body being bi-convex. Others have the ends of similar form, but the implement is flat on one surface, convex on the other. Again, they occur pointed at both ends, or one end is pointed and the other hatchet-shaped. This type may be likened to the iron pick of the present day, and might have been fixed to a rude handle at the centre. Then there are forms truncate at one end, and hatchet-shaped at the other; and truncate implements from tabular-flint. These last are long, clumsy and square-sided; one end being quite blunt, the other terminating in a flattish point. The savage appears to have taken a hint from nature, and used a flint somewhat shaped to hand, little more having been done than to give the flint a more uniform outline, and chip the point to the requisite shape. Such ungainly implements could hardly have required mounting, and must have been used as hand implements.

Then there are cores, which are merely refuse flints from which flakes have been struck; and the flakes which have evidently been struck from such cores. Flint-knives also, and arrow-heads, and stemmed javelin flakes, which bear a strong resemblance to the obsidian flakes used in preparing darts by the natives of New Caledonia. Among the tools may be enumerated awls and drills, the former probably used for punching eyelets in leather, the latter for drilling holes in wood, bone and horn, or even in boring stone. The slingstones are interesting and fine specimens are found in Hampshire; they are mostly circular and roughly cut, as if with the object of rendering them more capable of inflicting punishment. To "pot-boilers" it is difficult to assign any use; but as they are found with other ancient implements, and are evidently not natural formations, they must have been formed for some object. Possibly

they were used for building ovens in the earth, for the purpose of cooking food, after the manner of the natives of the Sandwich Islands. It is difficult to conceive that the Celtic people were ignorant of fire-proof utensils, and that they resorted to heated stones in order to raise the temperature of their water. With Celtic remains rude pottery is commonly found, so that, granting that the "heating-stone" was an appendage to the Celtic kitchen, it must one would think have been employed for some other purpose than as a pot-boiler.

The most notable particular in this short flint history is the paucity of rubbed specimens. They occur so seldom in fact, proportionately to the flaked ones, as to lead to the inference that rnbbing could have been but rarely practised. The art of polishing was probably quite unknown early in the Neolithic period. Partial rubbing it is likely preceded entire polishing, That which in the beginning was the exception became in later times the rule. Besides, it is certain that equal expertness could not have been manifested by different tribes at the same period, the inhabitants of one district polishing their tools, while the occupants of some other remote corner of the country had not advanced beyond the art of flaking. Further, the polished axes differ somewhat in form and face in different districts; and those appertaining to the bronze period have a type and finish we look in vain for among the prehistoric specimens of earlier date. The early polished hatchet was probably the work of leisure, and formed more particularly for the chief, and to share his burial mound, and not for the mere hewer of wood and drawer of water. In short, as far as usefulness is concerned, it is difficult to see the advantage the rubbed implement possesses over the chipped one. In comparative excellence the worked flints of Hampshire are somewhat in advance of those found in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, and are equal to the Yorkshire implements judging from those in the Blackmore collection.

Although it is easy to trace the topography of these interesting relics, it is not so in assigning to them a chronology. To whatever people they may be attributed they are valuable as facts; and