COMPARATIVE ARCHAOLOGY. 179 
and Wigtown, 2 each; Islay, Midlothian, Nairn, and Ireland, 
1 each. Again, on tabulating them according to the number 
of projecting facets or discs, the following was the result :— 
58 with 6 discs, 18 with 4, 7 with 7, 5 with 12, 5 with 8, 4 with 
5, 1 with 3, 2 with 15, 1 with 12, 1 with a kind of foliage, and 
ro unclassified. One from Lanark is made of bronze and 
ornamented with a late Celtic pattern. The back and front are 
shown on Plate II., No. 4. 
Recently the very improbable hypothesis that the Scot- 
either trade weights, or at anyrate 
oe 
tish stone balls were 
made in accordance with a trade-weight standard, the 
avoirdupois pound,’’ has been advanced by Mr Wilfrid Airy, 
B.A. (Proceedings of Institute of Civil Engineers, 1912). Mr 
Airy got 81 of these balls weighed, and, according to his state- 
ment, they appear to fall into four groups of 4, }, $, and 1 Ib. ; 
but by far the largest number belong to the 1 Ib. group. Fol- 
lowing up this clue, another ingenious writer suggests ‘‘ that 
they were used as poisers on weighing beams;’’ and in 
ce 
support of this theory he advances ‘‘ thirteen specific good 
reasons ° (Proc., S.A. Scot., vol. xivii.). ‘As the earliest 
weights known consisted of grains of wheat and barley, it 
would be interesting to know how, and when, these were 
superseded by stone-balls. 
During August, 1913, Mr W. Balfour Stewart, F.S.A. 
Scot., and Professor Boyd Dawkins made excavations in the 
underground house at Skaill Bay, Orkney, the result of which 
is recorded (along with notes on the animal remains by Prof. 
Boyd Dawkins) in the Proceedings of the Society of Anti- 
quaries of Scotland, vol. xlviii. Among the relics discovered 
was a polished ball of basaltic rock (Plate II., No. 3), 
measuring 22 inches in diameter, and ornamented with an 
incised geometrical ornament of crossed lines, differing in this 
respect from the previously recorded ball from this dwelling, 
which was carved into small symmetrical knobs (Piate II., 
No. 2). The so-called second ball, found during the first 
excavations of this dwelling, was a real mace-head (Plate II., 
No. 1), somewhat oval and flattened in shape, with projecting 
knobs and perforated for a handle. I see no reason for in- 
cluding it in the category of the ornamented stone balls. In 
