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SURVIVALS.
In the collection will be found some specimens illustrative
of primitive methods and superstitions which are still or were
until quite recently existing and whose origin is to be found in
prehistoric times.
Flint and Steel. It is interesting to find the use of flint
continuing down to our own times, as is shown in the series of
flint and steel " strike-a-lights." One of the earliest methods of
obtaining fire was by means of a flint and a nodule of iron
pyrites. Many instances of these objects being found together
have occurred in the barrows. A specimen is shown here
from the site of an early British settlement in Wiltshire.
Difficult as it is for us in these days of cheap chemical matches
to imagine how people could exist with no better means of
obtaining fire or light than is afforded by these objects, yet this
was the general method in use within the memory of many who
are living at the present time. Under certain conditions of
climate, flint and steel are still regarded as more reliable than
matches, and for the use of the troops in the recent campaign in
South Africa this ancient practice was revived in the form of
the " Lovett Tinder-Box."
The gun-flint is another link in the chain of continuity, and
flint-lock rifles are still manufactured for the use of the natives
of Africa and other parts. A factory for the making of gun-
flints exists at Brandon, Suffolk ; specimens of the tools used
and the methods employed in this industry are here shown.
Lucky-Stones. Stones having a naturally formed hole are
generally regarded with superstitious reverence, and in Essex,
as in many other parts, it is quite common to see the keys of
stables, &c, affixed to such a stone. This is a survival of a
superstition whose origin is lost in antiquity and the meaning of
which can only be surmised.
It appears to be intimately connected with the belief in
spirits, for the prehistoric stone tombs or dolmens of England,
France, and the East, extending to India, have frequently a hole
worked into one of the stones, and sometimes this is large enough
to give admission to the monument, but more often it is merely a