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



this looks to be the case as regards the Clandown cup. I have 

 now to say a little about a quasi stone, very characteristic of 

 Dorset, and on which Evans does not say much. This is Kimme- 

 ridge shale, commonly called coal. I need but say, in passing, that 

 the Dorset Museum possesses many specimens of the lathe-cores of 

 shale, formerly called Kimmeridge coal money. There is also, in 

 the Smart Collection here, an armlet turned of this shale by the 

 late Mr. Medhurst, with the core. This exactly resembles one of 

 the two ancient types. I should also remark that the Museum 

 contains two ancient shale armlets more perfect than usual. They 

 were found at Fordington by my father. Next I must draw your 

 attention to a very remarkable slab of this shale. Several of an 

 oblong form have been found in Dorset, Wilts, and Hants. For 

 instance, General Pitt Rivers found a large one at Woodcuts, and 

 has reproduced the ornament thereof on the covers of the splendid 

 volumes describing his discoveries. These slabs have been thought 

 by some to be boards for draughts or some such game, the squares 

 having been painted, and so obliterated by Time. Others think 

 them to have been writing tablets, the unadorned reverse having 

 been covered with wax. The General inclines to the latter opinion, 

 and so does Dr. Smart. We have in the Hogg and Warne Collec- 

 tions fragments of these slabs, one wholly unornamented. But I 

 wish specially to mention another slab, a large fragment of which 

 is in the Cunnington Collection. It seems to me to increase the 

 puzzle about this class of antiquity not a little. For this thin slab, 

 about nine inches across, was a disc. Now this circular shape 

 seems most unlikely for a writing tablet, and nearly as much so for 

 a draught-board. Nearly, I say. For in the Middle Ages, and 

 therefore perhaps earlier, they used chess boards of a round form. 

 (Pictorial Hist, of England ii.) This fragment is depicted in the 

 Purbeck Papers, p. 225. It is ornamented with incised circles 

 forming a border near the circumference, with a small concentric 

 circle an inch or two within. The border is decorated with a 

 series of intersecting semicircles, and the inner circle seems to have 

 been surrounded by several little ones. The small circles, certainly, 



