112 On a Piece of Perforated Slate 
yet it would snit very cereal ay a a brace or shield on the 
wrist of a youth or female. Another plate deposited in the same 
Museum, hollowed, and pierced with the same number of holes as 
the Invernessshire and Worcestershire slates, 2} inches long, and 
2 inches broad, taken from a grave under a tumulus at Broadford 
Bay in the island of Skye, appears also to be well adapted to be 
used with the same design on the wrist of a grown up person.! 
(vide pl. vii., fig. 1, a. b. c.) It will be apparent then to the 
readers of this article, that the opinion formed by the writer con- 
cerning the probable use of such tablets both hollowed and flat 
ones is principally founded, first, on the adaptation of both kinds 
for the purpose suggested, and the utter improbability that the 
hollowed plates were worn on any other part of the body but the 
wrist ; secondly, on the position of the flat perforated slate in 
relation to the interred body discovered at Roundway Hill. The 
force of the first argument derived from the evidence of design in 
the instrument to serve the purpose supposed, will at once be recog- 
nized, and the second process of reasoning founded on the position 
of the flat tablet in the barrow at Roundway Hill, will doubtless 
also be allowed weight when its probable use is thus reconsidered by 
the light of the discovery of the scooped slates in Worcestershire 
and Scotland. If the flat tablets had been pierced with holes only 
at one end, it might be then a fair supposition that they served a 
purpose distinct from that of the hollowed ones perforated at both 
ends, and had been employed as appendages to the neck or breast, 
But when we observe them drilled through at either end, and in 
one instance with the same number of holes as the hollowed plates, 
it seems presumptive evidence that the uses of both kinds of tablets 
were the same, those with a concave surface being only more ex- 
pensively and elaborately wrought in order to fit easier the slight 
rotundity of the inner side of the wrist. The interesting result 
of the process of reasoning conducted in this paper, shows the 
utility of comparing specimens of antiquities from various and 
1 This specimen being slightly smaller at the lower end than at the upper end, 
seems still better suited for the purpose of a brace. The width of the lower 
end is exactly the same as that of the plate from Aldington, viz. 1 inches. 
