312 IMPLEMENT MADE FROM A STAG'S ANTLER.
I do not remember having seen any implement quite like
this, or to have read of one that exactly accords ; but my
impression is that the instrument has been used by a potter with
a wheel and that the chisel-surface has become lustrous and
irregularly striate by its use in manipulating clay for pots and
that the fine regular transverse striations at the back have been
made in shaping the slightly gritty quickly revolving pot. The
tool could not have been used as a lever or chisel, had it been so
used the striae would have been longitudinal and not transverse.
Its rudeness may indicate Romano-British times.
If any readers of the Essex Naturalist know of a tool
similar with this in any museum or private collection it would be
well if they would kindly communicate with the Editor.
[We also submitted this implement to Mr. Charles H. Read, M A.
F.S.A., Keeper of the British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography,
British Museum, and he kindly replied as follows:-"In the first place
I scarcely think it was ever hafted, the hole is rather small for so long a blade,
and to my eyes there is no indication of the kind of wear produced by a haft.
The hole, therefore, would only be used as a means of suspension. As to its
use, there are many ways in which such an implement could be used ; but
the only purpose that I can at this moment think of which meets all the
difficulties—such as the transverse striations, &c.—is that it was used for
barking trees. The implement having been introduced into a cut in the bark,
would then be run downwards, thus producing the faint lines across the edge,
From the curve of the other side of the edge, this lace would not be so exposed
to wear." It will be noted that Mr. Worthington Smith does not agree with
this suggested use of the implement, and in face of the divergent views of
eminent authorities, we can only await further information to be derived from
comparison with similar implements, if such already exist in collections, or
the discovery of other examples under circumstances that would afford a clue
to their history and use. The implement, at Mr. Gearing's desire, will be
placed in the Club's Essex County Museum at Stratford. —Ed]