82 A GALLOWAY STONE-AGE VILLAGE. 
than the thicker stone axe, if for no other reason than that the 
metal tool, having a socketed handle, would be assisted (cer- 
tainly in no way impeded) by such attachment, while the stone 
axe might be hindered from any long sweeping action by the 
necessarily bulging hafting with which the middle of the axe- 
head must have been covered. 
Plaster casts of the 10 pile-ends before referred to have 
been made. A cast has also been taken of a bar of soap which 
has been sharpened at one end by a locally found stone axe- 
head simply held in the hand. 
The curved hollow adze (which occurs in iron) would give 
a much longer stroke than even the bulging bronze instrument, 
and would not leave such decidedly spoon-shaped impressions 
upon the wood as have been referred to.. The bulging bronze 
axe has not, to my knowledge, been found in the neighbourhood, 
whereas many specimens of the type of stone axe described have 
been found there during the last twenty years. 
As the same type of markings would have been left on the 
timber whether the axe were wielded radially or otherwise—that 
is, as an adze or as a hatchet—we have no clue as to the position 
of the handle relative to that of the blade. 
An inspection of the axe-work on the set of pile-ends which 
have been preserved, from Sites 1 and 3, shows that the axe 
has always been made to strike along the line of the length of 
the log. The breadth of the facets at the widest, it is further 
seen, does not exceed 2 inches. 
It may be mentioned that the stone axe-head used to cut 
the bar of soap imprints facets not more than 2 inches wide. 
In this axe-head the lengths across and round the cutting edge 
are respectively 24 and 2? inches. 
These pile-ends embrace squarely cut ends and specimens 
of both the acutely pointed and the obtuse or roof-shaped end. 
The ridge in the last-mentioned type is seldom centrally placed. 
In the case of a log of the roof-shaped type, ‘44° inches in 
diameter, but the ridge of which is centrally placed, there are 
traces of 15 facets in the cut surface. The ridge does not run 
horizontally, and measures 74 inches in length. In another 
pile-end, 34 inches thick, there are marks of 5 cuts in a length 
of 33 inches; and in another specimen, 44 inches in diameter, 
on an oval area, 44 inches by 33 inches, 8 jacGs may be seen. 
