In America, flint, or rather horn-stone flakes, are not uncommon, though not so often noticed as the more finished forms. Some found in the mounds of Ohio are of considerable length, one engraved by Squier and Davis[1294] being 5 1∕2 inches long. Some of the Mexican flakes of obsidian are fully 6 inches in length. * * * * * In ancient times the Ichthyophagi are described by Diodorus[1295] as using antelopes’ horns and stones broken to a sharp edge in their fishing, “for necessity teaches everything.” Flakes are still in some cases used without any secondary chipping or working into form. We find, for instance, flakes of flint or obsidian, and even of glass, almost in the condition in which they were struck from the parent block, employed as lance and javelin-heads, among several savage people, such as the natives of Australia,[1296] and of the Admiralty Islands.[1297] One of those said to be in use among the latter people is shown, half-size, in Fig. 195,[1298] and exhibits the method of attachment to the shaft. The butt-end of the flake is let into a socket in a short tapering piece of wood, into the other extremity of which the end of the long |289| light shaft is inserted; both flake and shaft are next secured by tying, and then the whole of the socket and ligatures is covered up with a coating of resinous gum, occasionally decorated with zigzag and other patterns. Some flakes are mounted as daggers. Some of the long parallel flakes also appear to have been hafted. One such, probably from Mexico, has been engraved by Aldrovandus as a _culter lapideus_.[1299] A tool in use among the natives of Easter Island[1300] consisted of a broad flake of obsidian, with a roughly chipped tang which was inserted in a slit in the handle to which it was bound, the binding being tightened by means of wooden wedges driven in under the string.