Mr. Albert Way, as probably the ancient stone instruments transmitted to Sir Joseph Banks by Mr. Scott of Lerwick, in Shetland, and communicated to the Society, March 9, 1820. Sixteen were found by a man digging peats in the parish of Walls, Shetland, placed regularly on a horizontal line, and overlapping each other like slates upon the roof of a house, each standing at an angle of 45. They lay at a depth of about six feet in the peat moss, and the line of stones ran east and west, with the upper edge towards the east. A considerable number of implements, mostly of the same class, were found on the clay under the ancient mosses of BlairDrummond and Meiklewood. Some of them are composed of slate, and others of a compact green-stone. They are from four to six inches long, flat and well polished. There were also along with them a number of stone celts and axe-heads, mostly made of the same hard green-stone. The Scottish collection includes, along with examples of the Shetland and Orkney stone knives, another of an entirely different form, made of light grey flint, which was found, along with a stone celt of unusual shape, within the area of a "Druidical circle," in Strachur parish, Argyleshire. Two others, recently discovered in ploughing a field in the neighbourhood of Largo, Fifeshire, totally differ from any of the numerous examples found in Denmark or Sweden. They are turned back at the point, finished with great care, have a fine edge, and appear to have been attached to bone or wooden handles. Celts and hatchets, or wedges, are among the most abundant of all the relics of the Stone Period. They have been discovered in considerable quantities in almost every part of Scotland, from the remote Orkney and Shetland Isles,' to the shores of the Solway and the 1 Vide Hibbert's Shetland, pp. 247-250. banks of the Tweed. Examples are frequently found rudely executed, with little appearance of labour except at the edge; while others are characterized by the highest finish and the utmost degree of polish that the modern lapidary could confer on them. The manner of hafting the stone celt has been made the subject of much discussion, though this is sufficiently illustrated by the practice of modern savage tribes still using weapons of stone. Various recent discoveries indicate that one of the earliest methods consisted in inserting the flint or stone wedge into the hollow portion of a stag's horn, having a perforation to receive the handle.1 Imple ments brought from the islands of the Pacific illustrate other and equally simple modes still employed among races in a corresponding stage of progress; and a tool in common use among the Clalam Indians shows the more ingenious application of the stone blade as an adze by the canoe-makers on the coast of Oregon.2 Other methods, however, have been suggested by which this primitive weapon could be hafted, so as to become available for the war-axe of the northern warrior. The example found in the earliest ancient canoe of the Clyde, leaves no room to doubt that it was secured by thongs, or a portion of the haft, passing round the middle. Both ends are highly polished, while the middle remains rough, having evidently been designed to be covered and concealed. One stone celt, dug up in the county of Tyrone, was inserted in its perforated wooden handle, in a manner the artless rudeness of which could hardly be surpassed.* Much more efficient means, however, are frequently seen employed in corresponding weapons brought from the South Sea Islands, or the north-west coast of America, than any of the ancient examples dis 1 Antiquités Celtiques et Antediluviennes, 3 Vide ante, Fig. 1, p. 53. Prehistoric Man, vol. i. p. 156. 4 Archæol. Jour. vol. iv. p. 3. play; and suffice to illustrate the improved methods which experience would suggest to the rude Caledonian aborigines. The stone celt must unquestionably be regarded as a weapon of war. With its thick round edge, when wielded at the end of a long handle, similar to those to which we see the stone axes of Polynesian savages attached, it would prove an effective lethal weapon; but few examples of it appear to be applicable to any useful purpose as tools. The flint or stone hatchet seems the more probable implement which, with the ever-ready aid of fire, sufficed to hew down the oak, to split and reduce it into requisite forms for domestic uses, or to shape and hollow it out into such rude canoes as have been described in a former chapter. Still, it is difficult to draw any definite line of distinction between the artificer's and the warrior's axe; the same implement having doubtless been often employed in waging war on the leafy giants of the old Caledonian forests, and on rival tribes who found a home within their fastnesses. The most perfect, indeed, of the stone hatchets seem ill adapted for the laborious task of felling the knotty oak, and hollowing it for the primitive canoe. But in all such considerations of savage art it must be borne in remembrance that time, which forms so important an element in modern estimate, hardly comes into account with the savage. Armed with no better tools, the Red Indian, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, is known to cut an incision in the bark round the root of the tree destined for his canoe; into this he places glowing embers until it is charred to a considerable depth, and by the alternate use of the hatchet and the fire the largest tree is brought to the ground, and by the same ingenious process adapted to bear its owner on the open seas. examples shown here, Fig. 17, are of the later class of flint hatchets, with the broad end ground to a fine edge. They were found near Strachur, Argyleshire, and are of a type common in Denmark, but rarely found in Scotland or any part of the British Isles. The An interesting discovery illustrative of the use of the stone battle-axe, or celt, is thus described in a letter from Captain Denniston to Mr. Train. About the year 1809, Mr. M'Lean of Mark found it necessary, in the course of some improvements on his farm, to remove a large cairn on the Moor of Glenquicken, Kirkcudbrightshire, which popular tradition assigned as the tomb of some unknown Galwegian king, styled Aldus M'Galdus :-"When the cairn had been removed, the workmen came to a stone coffin of very rude workmanship, and on removing the lid, they found the skeleton of a man of uncommon size. The bones were in such a state of decomposition, that the ribs and vertebræ crumbled into dust on attempting to lift them. The remaining bones being more compact, were taken out, when it was discovered that one of the arms had been almost separated from the shoulder by the stroke of a stone axe, and that a fragment of the axe still remained in the bone. The axe had been of green stone, a species of stone never found in this part of Scotland. There were also found with this skeleton a ball of flint, about three inches in diameter, which was perfectly round and highly polished, and the head of an arrow, also of flint, but not a particle of any metallic substance."1 Many of the most highly-finished celts and hatchets found in Scotland are made of the same green-stone, which is susceptible of a beautiful polish. Other implements of this period are chisels of flint, nearly resembling those of Norway and Denmark. Several examples are in the Scottish Museum; and a curious instance of a perforated chisel, similar to those frequently found in Denmark, was turned up in 1841, in trenching a piece of ground near the Church of Lismore, Argyleshire. It is of the usual square form, measuring four inches long, and is described in the New Statistical Account as a stone needle.2 Another and FIG. 18.-Flail Stone. larger class of Scottish implements are cylindrical or oval perforated stones, of which no examples, I believe, have yet been found in Denmark or Sweden. The woodcut represents one of these implements, measuring 8 inches in length, found in a cist near North Berwick Abbey, East Lothian, where many primitive remains have been discovered. It is flattened at the end where it is perforated, and is made of a very hard polished stone. Another was found in 1832, in the parish of Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire; and similar implements are occasionally 1 New Statist. Acc. Kirkcudbrightshire, vol. iv. p. 332. |