In one instance the roof had caved in, evidently during the night, and on clearing out the gallery near the end where the roof stood firm, there were found the implements of the workmen, just as they were left at the close of the day’s work; and in one place on the pick, covered with chalk dust, was still to be seen the marks of the workman’s hand. How many years, crowded with strange scenes, have swept over England since that chalky impression was made! The surface of the earth is a palimpsest, on which each stage of culture has been written over the faint, almost obliterated, records of the past. Not only the living man, who has left there the impression of his hand has passed away, but also his people and his culture. And now it is only here and there that we catch a faint tracing underlying our later civilization, by which we reconstruct the history of these far-away times. Nothing would be more natural than that where flint was found in abundance a regular manufactory of implements would be established. Such was the case at Cissbury, which we have already mentioned as one of the early British towns. Mines had been dug within the walls inclosing the town. The surface of the ground near the old mines at this place is literally covered by splinters of flint in every stage of manufacture, “from the nodule of flint fresh out of the chalk, spoilt by an unlucky blow, to the article nearly finished and accidentally broken.”27 Here the flint was mined and chipped into rudimentary shape, but carried away to be perfected and polished. A very important place in Neolithic manufactures was noticed near Tours, France. Here was an abundant supply of flint, and very easily obtained, and the evidence is conclusive that here existed real manufactories. Of one stretch of ground, having an area of twelve or fourteen acres, we are told: “It is impossible to walk a single step without treading on some of these objects.” Here we find “hatchets in all stages of manufacture, from the roughest attempt up to a perfectly polished weapon. We find, also, long flakes or flint-knives cleft off with a single blow with astonishing skill.”