Book excerpt: Excerpt from On the Manufacture of Gun-Flints, the Methods of Excavating for Flint, the Age of Palaeolithic Man, and the Connexion Between Neolithic Art and the Gun-Flint Trade The observations upon the kind of hammer used, the character of the blows given, and the resulting nature of the fracture produced are original, and founded upon a close study of the different modes in which int can be broken. The illustrations are nearly all very faithful copies of particular specimens. Owing to my not being able to superintend the drawing, some of the gun-hints are slightly faulty, the trimmed heels being omitted. If it be remembered that all but double-edged ints have a trimmed heel, no error can arise in naming the Hints. The English hammer has suffered perfection. It is (as needs must be) a very battered specimen, but the kindly artist has feelingly restored its lost beauties, and unwittingly robbed it of its more important peculiarities. It is well also to remark that the Doubles in this collection are all rather too large, and hence too much like the Singles. This will be remedied if this work attains to a second edition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."