MINING OPERATIONS OF THE ROMANS. 27 



substances. The miners at Llanduduo observed, however, 

 that their predecessors had been unable to work the 

 hardest parts of the rock, in which the riebest ore is found ; 

 for they have recently obtained many tons of ore of the 

 best quality from these ancient workings."* Mr. W. O. 

 Stanley presented soine of the above-mentioned imple- 

 ments of stone to the British Museum, where they may 

 now be seen in the department of British Antiquities. 



Among the implements described by Pennant was an 

 iron wedge, 5\ inches long, found in vvorking the deep 

 fissures of the Dalar Goch strata, in the parish of Disert, 

 Flintshire. Its remote age was shown by its being much 

 incrusted with lead ore. 



If this iron wedge had been of bronze, our antiquaries 

 would have called it a celL I therefore embrace this as a 

 fit opportunity for introducing a few remarks on the use 

 of celts in mining. Some years since I produced an essay 

 On the use of Bronze Celts in Military Operations.] Many 

 of the facts and circumstances, which I then mentioned, 

 are equally applicable to the present case ; more especially, 

 the bronze celts, 1 8 or 20 in number, which were found in 

 Andalusia, in a Roman coal mine, and which had been 

 attached to a straight wooden handle, and used as we use 

 a chisel, a spud, or a crow-bar, are examples in point. J 

 See the wood-cut (Plate I, fig. 3) of one of them, half the 

 length of the objeet itself. Also some of the bronze 

 palstaves, which I described on that occasion, and which 

 are in the collections at Paris, are large enough for almost 

 any mining Operations without exception. || 



I beg to refer to the same memoir for the aecount of 



* Archmol. Journal, vol. VII., A.D. 1850, p. 68, 69. 



t Publislied in the Archeeological Journal, vi., 363-392. 



X See Arch. Journal, vi., 69, 369. || Ibid., p. 374. 



