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My previous reply should have reference this post. Sorry.

Brilliant. And just as I was signing off. I shall follow that up.

I doubt that in situ flint was ever mined to get ships' ballast. All the gravel pits along the Thames produced flint pebbles, produced over aeons by the river cutting through chalk. There was a major Victorian industry around the lower Thames to produce ships' ballast. See for example...

You comment is spot on. My request relates to the reports on Australia that the other posters refer to. Those reports are simplifying a complex question and not everybody accepts that the flints were flaked by Aborigines. Some have suggested that they are crushed. Nevertheless, there seems to...

Hi krus_aragon Thanks for your comments, and I should have said I am in Australia. A question has been raised as to whether some flint, of River Thames origin, was crushed for use as ballast.

In his book The Railways: British Track Since 1804 Andrew Dow writes that flint is one of the materials that was crushed and used as ballast. Does anybody know of surviving examples of crushed flint ballast, or know of any photos of flint ballast?