flint, must have been immense. It seems quite as probable that these were weapons as tools, and, in that case, we can understand an amount of time and care being bestowed on their preparation such as in modern days we find savages so often lavishing on their warlike accoutrements. Another argument in favour of these being weapons, may be derived from the beauty of the material of which they are sometimes composed. That from Farney is of a light green colour and nicely polished, and one in my own collection, found near Tullamore, King's County, is formed of a piece of black and white gneissose rock, which must have been selected for its beauty. One in the British Museum from Lough Gur is of black hornblende.
Fig. 151.—Heslerton Wold. 12
The type with the oval section is not, however, confined to Ireland. In the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful hammer of this class, which is represented in Fig. 151. It is made of a veined quartzose gneiss, and was found on Heslerton Wold, Yorkshire. As will be seen, it is somewhat oval in section. The sides are straight, but the faces from which the hole is bored are somewhat hollow. I have a specimen of the same form, but made of greenstone (3 inches), from the neighbourhood of Sutton Coldfield,[1] Warwickshire.
A barrel-shaped hammer (334 inches) was found on the hill of Ashogall,[2] Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and a rude triangular hammer on the Gallow Hill of Turriff.
A smaller hammer-head, curiously like those from Farney and Tullamore, both in form and material, was found with a small "food vessel" accompanying an interment near Doune,[3] Perthshire. It is 258 inches long, with a parallel shaft-hole 58 in diameter.
Another, of small-grained black porphyry, neatly polished, and about 314 inches long, similar in outline to Fig. 150, but of oval section, and little more than an inch in thickness, was dredged up in the Tidal Basin, at Montrose, and is preserved in the local museum.
A cylindrical hammer of grey granite (234 inches) only partially bored from both faces, was found in the parish of Glammis,[4] Forfarshire. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful specimen formed of striped gneiss (314 inches) with well-rounded ends, and the sides much curved inwards. It was found at Whiteness, Shetland. Another of his hammers (234 inches) with a parallel hole (78 inch) has the sides straight and is of oval section. It is of beautifully mottled gneiss.
Another variety, allied to the last, has an egg-shaped instead of a quasi-conical form; the shaft-hole being towards the small end of the egg. The specimen here engraved, Fig. 152, is apparently of serpentine, and was found at Hallgaard Farm, near Birdoswald, Cumberland. It is in the Greenwell Collection.
I have a smaller but nearly similar specimen in greenstone, from
