The stone ages in North Britain and Ireland / by the Rev. Frederick Smith ; with an introduction by Augustus H. Keane.
- Smith, Frederick, Rev.
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The stone ages in North Britain and Ireland / by the Rev. Frederick Smith ; with an introduction by Augustus H. Keane. Source: Wellcome Collection.
367/413 page 338
![implement—a terrible weapon or a bigbly etlicient domestic hatchet. Its broad end is peculiar in Ibrm. It was a hatchet that would have crashed into the skull of even the mammoth, or have detached a limb from its carcass. This specimen seems to have belonged to the age of the Great Mammalia. It is glaciated! If it be not striated, then the fine weapon (Figs. 88 and 89) is not glaciated; nor are some other imple- ments glaciated which I have taken out from the actual boulder-clay in Scotland and from the Dublin glacial cliff, although they exhibit identical striation. I am the last in the world to desire to exaggerate any evidence. I am astonished at what this specimen seems to assert, viz. that it is of inter- or pre-glacial origin. I state what it impKes to me. In forcing this fine example into a crevice among rough rocks I scratched it barbarously, to my regret; but such scratches are quite different in character from the original stripe, and are easily detected. This find is of the heavy iron- stone-band. It had certainly long been embedded, and thus sheltered from the atmosphere, and I should say from water also; much of the boulder-clay is alike impermeable to air and to water. The condition of the specimen is such as to indicate that it was, before it was eudjedded, gently but decidedly river-rolled. As is evident in the drawing, it is in a rotten condition, but otherwise is wonderfully perfect. Another result of this recent hunt is ])articularly interesting in connection with this heroic chopper and our study of glaciated chopper forms. It seems to me to be a snapped-off cud of what must have been another magnificent implement, eciually fine in the skill with which it was elalwrated,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24885691_0366.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
