STONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC., IN THE DORSET MUSEUM. 19 



each man plodding away at his celt with a bit of heath-stone, or 

 perhaps with a foreign, basalt rubber with sharp sand. This 

 polishing helped off a quantity of time between hunt and hunt, raid 

 and raid, field-work and field-work. I hazard the idea that these 

 wonderfully finished celts must have been ceremoniously broken 

 at the burial. If broken in use surely the edge would be the 

 chief part to suffer. But sometimes the celt is broken across 

 and the delicate edge little, if at all, damaged. There is a good 

 example in the Museum from Laurence Barrow, which till a few 

 years ago stood behind Sydney Terrace, Dorchester. In flinty 

 Dorset flint celts are in enormous majority, compared with those of 

 other kinds of stone. Of Greenstone we have, however, two 

 excellent ones and fragments of others of basalt. And there is in 

 the Cunnington Collection another most noteworthy fragment. 

 Mr. Cunnington found it on B-idgway by the exercise of the extra 

 sense which he seems to have. But I must leave the story for his 

 own telling. Suffice it to say that its material is an iron-stone of 

 the utmost rarity, and jet black. I need hardly say that greenstone, 

 basalt, and this ironstone have all come, wrought or unwrought, 

 from outside Dorset. The two greenstone celts are, indeed, of 

 different proportion namely, rounder in section than our flint 

 ones ; and, therefore, may very likely be foreign-made. As to the 

 way in which celts were used, I may perhaps say a little here. In 

 the opinion of some antiquaries, as well as of certain persons who 

 have seen savages at work, celts were often used for peaceful 

 purposes without any handle at all. An Australian settler has told 

 me that he has often watched a " black fellow " holding a piece of 

 wood free in his left hand and, with an English carpenter's chisel in 

 his other hand, jobbing away at the wood in a manner totally 

 different from anything that a European would do. Very rough 

 work was made, but the black fellow trusts to scraping to bring all 

 smooth. "Depend upon it," said my friend, "these celts were 

 often used in that way." Very likely. Some, however, were 

 hafted axe-wise, past a doubt, for at least two specimens have been 

 found in the north with their handles remaining, one in Solway 



