00 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



are not battered or worn at the ends. It seems, therefore, probable that they 

 were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they arc well adapted, 

 the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around it from wear by 

 friction. They seem also usually to occur in the neighborhood either of lakes, 

 rivers, or the sea. A water- worn nodule of sandstone, five inches long, with a 

 deep groove round it, and described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was 

 found in Aberdeenshire, and is in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh ; and 



1 have one of soft grit, about the same length, given me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, 

 F. G. S., and found by him near Nantlle, Carnarvonshire. Many of these sink- 

 stones are probably of no great antiquity." 



Mr. Evans refers in the same place to " sink-stones, weights, or plummets 

 formed by boring a hole towards one end of a flattish stone." He mentions 

 several specimens, but gives no illustrations of them. While in Sweden, he saw 

 the leg-bones of animals used as weights for sinking nets.* 



" In Ireland," Sir William Wilde observes, " sink-stones, for either nets or 

 fishing-lines, are by no means rare, as they continue in use even at the present 

 day ; and quoit-like discs, of sandstone, from four to six inches in diameter and 

 with a hole in the centre to attach them to the bottom-rope of a net, are not uncom- 

 mon in localities where lead is scarce. - But, besides these rude imple- 

 ments, we find others formed with more care, and which are generally supposed to 

 have been attached to either lines or nets."f He gives three illustrations of such 

 stones, Figs. 77, 78, and 79, of which I reproduce the first two as Figs. 115 and 

 116. The original of Fig. 115 is described as being composed of soft white 



Fia. no. 

 FIGS. ll. r > and 116. Stone sinkers. Ireland. 



sandstone traversed by a vein of quartz, and encircled by a groove round the 

 long axis for retaining a string or thong. Fig. 116 represents " a plummet-like 

 piece of sandstone, three inches and a half long, with a hole at the small extrem- 



* Evans: Ancient Stone Implements ; p. 211. 



t Sir W. Wilde: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities in tho Museum of the Royal Irish Academy; 

 Vol. I, Dublin, 18G3; p. 94. 



