a groove on each side terminating in a stop-ridge, and with lateral flanges, designed to secure a hold on the handle, as in Fig. 58. In an example engraved here (Fig. 56), found in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, the perforation near the end appears to have been produced in the casting. The second palstave (Fig. 57) illustrates a common variety provided with a projecting loop or ear. In some the flange is only on one side, and bent over so as sometimes nearly to meet, and form a hollow socket. The general characteristics of this class of implements partake more of carpentering tools than weapons of war; but in this, as in many other instances, it is difficult to

draw the distinction, among objects equally available for both purposes.

The same stop-ridge and flange characterize another implement engraved here (Fig. 59), from the original, in the valuable collection of Scottish antiquities formed by Sir John Clerk, at Penicuick House. It measures 7 inches in length; but, as will be seen, it seems better adapted for use as a spade or hoe than for any purposes of warfare, unless in the construction or overthrow of earthworks; and in this its small dimensions would render it but poorly applicable to the requirements of military engineering.

But the most common of all the relics of this class is the Bronze celt. It is found of various sizes and

degrees of ornament, from the plain small celt of scarcely an inch and a half long, to those of six and seven inches. in length, fluted, encircled with mouldings or cablepattern borders, and ornamented with incised designs and embossed figures on the blade. One of the Scottish examples, engraved as a Roman securis in Sir Robert Sibbald's Portes, Coloniæ, etc., has its blade decorated with the herring-bone pattern, in the same style, and perhaps with the same object as has been suggested for the incised axe-blades of the period. The use of the loop so generally attached to the bronze celt, as well as

1

FIG. 61.

Bronze Celts.

FIG. 62.

to one class of palstaves, has been the subject of scarcely less industrious speculation than the probable purpose of the implement itself; and the variety of theories it has given rise to only proves how difficult it is for the most ingenious speculator to recall with any certainty the dead past. But the unique specimen found at Tadcaster, with an oval bronze ring attached to the loop, and a small bead or ring of jet upon it, so far from confirming the favourite idea of the loop having been used with a thong or cord for securing the celt to a bent shaft, as an axe-head: seems more consistent with its design as a

means of suspension, or for securing a number together for convenient deportation. The large celt (Fig. 61), measuring fully five inches long, is a cast from one of the stone moulds discovered at Rosskeen, Ross-shire; another (Fig. 60), now in my possession, was dug up to the eastward of "Samson's Ribs," on Arthur Seat, along with other relics of the same period; and Fig. 62 is from the Scottish Collection. Such are the more common forms of the bronze axe, celt, and palstave. They all appear to be more or less applicable to a variety of uses, both as mechanical tools and warlike weapons; and any very nice attempts at discriminating between the various purposes for which they were designed are more likely to engraft on the devices of primitive art a subdivision peculiar to modern civilisation than to throw light on the era of their production. The Indian's tomahawk and knife are equally employed in war or the chase, in the mechanical labours or culinary operations of the wigwam ; and at a period greatly nearer our own time than that of the bronze axe and celt, the same implement sufficed the Scottish moss-trooper or the Highland clansman for tableknife, couteau de chasse, and dagger. We may therefore assume with little hesitation that the older Briton hewed down the giant oaks of the forest, and shaped them into canoes, or wrought them into implements of war and husbandry, with the same bronze axe or palstave which he carried to battle; though we cannot overlook the obvious adaptation of the diverse implements to different purposes, whether of peace or war. It is also worthy of notice that the simplest of all means of attaching the axe securely to its handle by means of a perforation through the blade or axe-head, though already in use for the stone hammer, does not appear to have been resorted to by the workers in bronze. No perforated bronze axe, so far as I am aware, has been preserved, though the

VOL. I.

2 B

following description seems to refer to such a discovery, if the strict use of the terms employed can be relied upon :-"On the banks of the Cree, in Galloway, there were several tumuli. In some of these, when they were opened in 1754, there were found the remains of weapons of brass, which were very much corroded. One of these was formed like a halbert; another was shaped like a hatchet, having in the back part an instrument resembling a paviour's hammer. A third was formed like a spade, but of a much smaller size, and each of these weapons had a proper aperture for a handle." Unfor tunately the researches of the Scottish archæologist are frequently baffled by tantalizing notices, conveyed in equally vague terms, and with no accompanying illus

FIG. 63.-Bronze Lever, Pettycur.

trations to help him to the true character of the objects described.

Numerous other weapons and implements of bronze, all characterized by the same style of workmanship, have been found in Scottish tumuli, or in the chance hoards of bogs, lakes, and alluvial deposits. Wedges and chisels are among the most common of those; and axe-blades, celts, and palstaves, may be reckoned by hundreds. Of rarer implements of the same era, a bronze crowbar or lever, represented in the annexed woodcut, Fig. 63, measuring 7 inches long, appears to be unique. It was found in 1810, in a barrow near Pettycur, Fifeshire, and is now in the collection of the Hon. James Talbot. It is introduced in the Archæological Journal, in illustration

1 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 81.

of a communication by Mr. James Yates, on the use of bronze celts in military operations, and is described as very strong. Its longer end, bent perhaps accidentally, seems intended to be fixed in a stout handle of wood, to which it could be firmly secured by the perforated wings. Mr. Yates adds in describing it :-" The circumstance of its discovery in a barrow is an evidence that it was used for some military purpose, for barrows were not the tombs of agriculturists, gardeners, masons, or carpenters, but of chiefs and warriors." But in making use of such an argument it may be doubted if we are not applying the results of modern civilisation as the standard of primitive ideas. Most probably the greatest chief of the early Bronze Period was in many cases also the best

FIG. 64.

mason, carpenter, and military engineer, and the most skilful worker in metals, -the literal chief, in fact, and true king, or most knowing man of his tribe. Perhaps a better argument is to be found in the frequent decoration of the bronze celt. There is a sense of fitness in all minds, and most surely developed in the primitive stages of civilisation, where it acts intuitively, which teaches man to reserve the decorative arts for objects of luxury and pleasurable enjoyment,- --then including war and the chase, but not to expend them on tools of handicraft and implements of toil. With the latter, however, must

1 I am indebted for this woodcut to the Council of the Archæological Institute, with the courteous permission of Mr. Yates, by whom it was originally contributed to the Archæological Journal.

2 Vide Bibliotheca Topog. Brit, vol. ii. Part 3, for an interesting correspondence on the questio vexata of the origin and use of bronze celts, on which so much ink has been spilled to very small profit. The correspondence includes an account of the singular discovery at Alnwick, in 1726, of twenty bronze