Besides these instruments, bodkins, spear-heads, and stones for slings have also been found in the kitchen-middens, without taking into account a quantity of fragments of flint which do not appear to have been wrought with any special purpose in view, and were probably nothing but rough attempts, or the mere refuse of the manufacture. [Illustration: Fig. 85.--Refuse from the Manufacture of wrought Flints.] In the same deposits there are also found a good many pebbles, which, according to the general opinion, must have been used as weights to sink the fishing-nets to the bottom of the water. Some are hollowed out with a groove all round them, like that depicted in fig. 86, which is designed from a specimen in the Museum of Saint-Germain. Others have a hole bored through the middle. This groove or hole was, doubtless, intended to hold the cord which fastened the stone weight to the net. [Illustration: Fig. 86.--Weight to sink Fishing-nets.] _Weapons and Tools._--We shall now pass on to the weapons and tools which were in use among the people in the north of Europe during the period we are considering. During the latter period of the polished-stone epoch working in stone attained to a really surprising degree of perfection among the people of the North. It is, in fact, difficult to understand how, without making use of any metallic tools, men could possibly impart to flint, when fashioned into weapons and implements of all kinds, those regular and elegant shapes which the numerous excavations that have been set on foot are constantly bringing to light. The Danish flint may, it is true, be wrought with great facility; but nevertheless, an extraordinary amount of skill would be none the less necessary in order to produce that rectitude of outline and richness of contour which are presented by the Danish specimens of this epoch--specimens which will not be surpassed even in the Bronze Age. The hatchets found in the north of Europe, belonging to the polished-stone epoch, differ very considerably from the hatchets of France and Belgium. The latter are rounded and bulging at the edges; but the hatchets made use of by the people of the North (fig. 87) were flatter and cut squarely at the edge. They were nearly in the shape of a rectangle or elongated trapezium, with the four angles cut off. Their dimensions are sometimes considerable; some have been found which measured nearly 16 inches in length. [Illustration: Fig. 87.--Danish Axe of the Polished-stone Epoch.]