Fig. 107.—The earliest Manufacture and Polishing of Flints.
In this sketch we have depicted the polisher found by M. Leguay, of which we give a representation in fig. 108. In this picture it was indispensable for us to show the operation of polishing, for the latter is a characteristic of the epoch of mankind which we are now describing, that is, the polished-stone period. It must, in fact, be remarked that during the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth, and the reindeer epoch, stone instruments were not polished, they were purely and simply flakes or fragments of stone. During the epoch at which we have now arrived, a great improvement took place in this kind of work, and stone instruments were polished. It is therefore essential to call attention to the latter operation.
Fig. 108.—Polisher found by M. Leguay.
We think we ought to quote here the brief account M. Leguay has given of the polisher represented in our figure. In his 'Note sur une Pierre à polir les Silex trouvée en Septembre, 1860, à la Varenne-Saint-Hilaire (Seine),' M. Leguay thus writes:—
"Amongst the many monuments of the Stone Age which I have collected at Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, on the site of the ancient settlement which once existed there, there is one which has always struck me, not only by its good state of preservation, but also by the revelations which it affords us as to one of the principal manufactures of these tribes—the fabrication of flint weapons and utensils.
"This object is a stone for polishing and fashioning the finest kind of hatchets. I discovered it in September, 1860, at a spot called La Pierre au Prêtre, along with several other monuments of primitive art which I intend before long to make public. This stone is a rough sandstone of cubical shape, showing no trace whatever of having been hewn. It is 13 inches in its greatest thickness, and measures 37 inches long by 21 wide, and, just as in many boulders, one of its faces is well adapted to the use for which it was employed.
"This is the face which was used for many long years for rubbing and polishing the weapons made in the place, the remains of which are still found in small quantities in the neighbourhood, and abound in the burial-places, where they have been deposited as votive offerings.