Obsidian cores and flakes have been found in Lorraine,[1277] the material having been brought from Auvergne. |287| Flakes occur, but not so abundantly, in Spain and Portugal. A fragment of a ridged flake of jasper, found in the cave of Albuñol in Spain,[1278] is 1 1∕2 inches long. In one of the Genista Caves[1279] at Gibraltar there was found one of the long flakes, but of which a part had been broken off. Another was 6 1∕2 inches long and 5∕8 inch wide. In Algarve,[1280] Portugal, they have been found up to 15 inches in length; some of them are beautifully serrated at the edges. In Italy they are by no means uncommon, sometimes of great length. One, 7 inches long, is figured by Nicolucci.[1281] Among the Swiss Lake-dwellers considerable use was made of flint flakes, not only as the material for arrow-heads, but for cutting tools. So great was the abundance of flint left on the site of some of their habitations, as at Nussdorf,[1282] that in after ages the spot was resorted to for generations, in order to procure flints for use with steel. It was by their being thus known as flint-producing spots that some of the Lake-dwellings were discovered. A flake nearly 7 inches long, from peat, in the Canton de Vaud, has been engraved by De Bonstetten.[1283] A flake 9 inches long from Transcaucasia[1284] has been figured. In Egypt[1285] flakes of flint have been found in considerable numbers in certain localities, some of them associated with polished stone hatchets; others are possibly of no extreme antiquity, though undoubtedly of artificial origin, and not of merely natural formation, as has been suggested by Lepsius.[1286] That distinguished antiquary has, however, found a number of well-formed ridged and polygonal flakes in Egypt, some of them in a grave which he has reason to assign to about 2500 B.C. A vast number of discoveries of flint flakes and other forms of worked flints has, of late years, been made in Egypt. It will probably be sufficient to indicate in a note[1287] some of the principal memoirs relating to the subject. They are found also in the Libyan[1288] desert. The discoveries at Helouan will be subsequently mentioned. The presence of numerous flakes, scrapers and other forms of flint instruments, has also been noticed in Algeria.[1289] They are for the most part rude and small. Flint flakes and tools are found on Mount Lebanon,[1290] and on the Nablus[1291] road from Jerusalem there are mounds entirely composed of flint chippings. |288| [Illustration: Fig. 195.—Admiralty Islands.] In Southern Africa,[1292] near Capetown and Grahamstown, flakes abound on the surface of the ground, sometimes of chert or flint, but often of basaltic rock. I have one from Grahamstown 8 inches in length. Their occurrence in India has already been noticed. The flakes from Jubbulpore[1293] are for the most part of small size, but some of those removed from the cores found in the river Indus must have been at least 5 or 6 inches long.