149 



author* notices at Dar'ab, " several large and rude stones forming a 

 cluster, irregularly circular, which from its appearance, a British anti- 

 quary might be almost authorized to pronounce Druidical, according 

 to the general application of this word among us." His drawing of 

 this relic completes the conviction of similarity; and it actually 

 appears from Herodian, (lib. 5. c. 3,) that large conical stones were 

 worshipped by the Phoenicians. The three last species of religious 

 structures are also to be found wherever Druidism prevailed, as in 

 Anglesey, &c., and seem to furnish a speaking testimony of that 

 faith having been, as Dr. Campbell would suggest,-f- derived from 

 the heathen worship of Ireland. 



In reference to the agricultural knowledge of this period, the Bri- 

 tons, at the time of Csesar's invasion, sowed small quantities of corn, 

 and that the Irish had, previous to the commencement of the Christian 

 era, very much advanced from the habits of the hunter or fisher- 

 man, to the less precarious pursuits of pasture and tillage, would ap- 

 pear by frequent passages in the annals and ancient laws. In the annals 

 of Inisfallen, King Muredach is mentioned as giving farms, (ad ann. 

 A. C. 327,) to certain persons. Indeed the inscriptions of long past 

 cultivation are yet visible on some of the coarsest wilds, and most 

 primitive valleys of the western province; and the Irish denomina- 

 tionsj of the ancient districts and townlands evince, that they were 

 imposed by a people thoroughly conversant in the qualities of soils, 

 while sundry implements referrible to agriculture, such as querns of 

 freestone, which have been found in various parts of the country, at 

 once evince their use and their antiquity. The only foreign testimony 



could conveniendy reach his hand." He also notices elsewhere (vol. 1. p. 313,) several such 

 trees so hung with rags ; a singular coincidence with an Irish superstition still prevalent. 



* Vol. 2. p. 124. t Ante, p. 8-5. 



j See Mason's Statistical Survey. 



