he had to dig out the rubbish from a former funnel-shaped pit
some forty feet deep. Down at this level, it appeared, the neolithic
worker had found the layer of the best flint. This he quarried by means
of narrow galleries in all directions. For a pick he used a red-deer's
antler. In the British Museum is to be seen one of these with the miner's
thumb-mark stamped on a piece of clay sticking to the handle. His lamp
was a cup of chalk. His ladder was probably a series of rough steps
cut in the sides of the pit. As regards the use to which the material
was put, a neolithic workshop was found just to the south of Grime's
Graves. Here, scattered about on all sides, were the cores, the
hammer-stones that broke them up, and knives, scrapers, borers,
spear-heads and arrow-heads galore, in all stages of manufacture.

Well, now let us hie to Lingheath, not far off, and what do we find?
A family of the name of Dyer carry on to-day exactly the same old method
of mining. Their pits are of squarer shape than the neolithic ones,
but otherwise similar. Their one-pronged pick retains the shape of
the deer's antler. Their light is a candle stuck in a cup of chalk.
And the ladder is just a series of ledges or, as they call them, "toes"
in the wall, five feet apart and connected by foot-holes. The miner
simply jerks his load, several hundredweight of flints, from ledge
to ledge by the aid of his head, which he protects with something that
neolithic man was probably without, namely, an old bowler hat. He even
talks a language of his own. "Bubber-hutching on the sosh" is the term
for sinking a pit on the slant, and, for all we can tell, may have
a very ancient pedigree. And what becomes of the miner's output? It
is sold by the "jag"--a jag being a pile just so high that when you
stand on any side you can see the bottom flint on the other--to the
knappers of Brandon. Any one of these--for instance, my friend Mr.
Fred Snare--will, while you wait, break up a lump with a short round
hammer into manageable pieces. Then, placing a "quarter" with his left
hand the leather pad that covers his knee, he will, with an oblong
hammer, strike off flake after flake, perhaps 1,500 in a morning; and
finally will work these up into sharp-edged squares to serve as
gun-flints for the trade with native Africa. Alas! the palmy days of
knapping gun-flints for the British Army will never return to Brandon.
Still, there must have been trade depression in those parts