copper ore) by the ancient Egyptians, so early as the third Manethonian Dynasty. It is hard to say whether the grooved stone found by Schliemann at Troy[1] was used as a hammer or a weight.
What is more remarkable still, in the New World similar stone hammers are found in the ancient copper mines near Lake Superior.[2] As described by Sir Daniel Wilson,[3] "many of these mauls are mere water-worn oblong boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly chipped in the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around them." They weigh from 10 to 40 lbs., and are found in enormous numbers. M. Marcou[4] has given an account of the discovery of some of these mauls in the Mine de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, at Point Kievenau, Lake Superior. He describes them as formed of leptynite (quartz and felspar), quartz, and porphyry, and weighing from 5 to 8 lbs. each; and mentions having seen one of quartz weighing about 5 lbs., which was in the possession of some Kioway Indians, and was bound to a handle with a strip of bison skin.
This similarity or identity in form of implements used in countries so wide apart, and at such different ages, does not, I think, point of necessity to any common origin, nor to any so-called "continuity of form," but appears to offer another instance of similar wants with similar means at command, resulting in similar implements for fulfilling those wants. Grooved hammers for other purposes, as evinced by their smaller size, and a few grooved axes, occur in Scandinavia. An example among one of the lower races in modern times is afforded by a large crystal of quartz, with its terminal planes preserved at both ends, which has been slightly grooved at the sides for the purpose of attaching it to a handle, and was brought by Captain Cook, from St. George's Sound, where it appears to have been used as a hammer or pick. It is now in the British Museum, and has been described by Dr. Henry Woodward.[5]
Even in Britain the hammer-stones of this form are not absolutely confined to mining districts. Canon Greenwell, in one of the barrows at Rudstone,[6] near Bridlington, found on the lid of a stone-cist two large greenstone pebbles 8 and 934 inches long, each with a sort of "waist" chipped in it, as if to receive a withe, and having marks at the ends of having been in use as hammers.
Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from the Archæological Journal.[7] This was found in company with two others at Burns, near Ambleside, Westmorland; and another, almost precisely similar in size and form, was found at Percy's Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that district. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked,- ↑ "Troy and its Remains," p. 97.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, "Indian Tribes," vol. i. p. 96; Squier's "Ab. Mon. of New York," p. 184; Lapham, "Ants, of Wisconsin," p. 74.
- ↑ "Prehist. Man," vol. i. pp. 246, 253.
- ↑ Comptes Rendus, 1866, vol. lxii. p. 470; Geol. Mag., vol. iii. p. 214; Mortillet, "Mat.," vol. ii. pp. 331, 401; vol. iii. p. 99.
- ↑ Brit. Assoc. Report, 1870, p. 158.
- ↑ Brit. Barrows, p. 239.
- ↑ Vol. x. p. 64.
