Know.us—On Pre-historic Implements, §c. 105 
XXIII.—Pre-uistoric IMPLEMENTS FOUND IN THE SANDHILLS OF 
Dunprum, County Down. By W. J. Know es. 
[Read, June 13, 1881.] 
Tue Sandhills of Dundrum are similar to those of Portstewart, Castle- 
rock, and Whitepark Bay, near Ballintoy, which I have described on 
various occasions. They all contain flint implements and other pre- 
historic remains, either lying exposed in hollows, or buried up in a 
black layer under a covering of sand which is in some places over fifty 
feet in thickness. The objects found in the hollows have also been 
buried up, but the covering has been removed by the wind. 
I believe that fully five thousand objects of human workmanship, 
such as arrow-heads, scrapers, flint knives, hammers, ornaments of 
different kinds, and pottery, have been obtained from these Sandhills 
during the past ten years, and I am of opinion that large quantities 
are still contained in the black layers where the covering of sand has 
not been removed. 
Dundrum, which is within easy reach by rail of Belfast, has been 
visited on one or two occasions by the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club. 
In their reports the finding of flint flakes is recorded. Knowing this, 
and also that the flint-bearing rocks are twenty-five or thirty miles 
distant, I scarcely expected to find flint implements when I visited the 
place for the first time in July, 1879, and therefore went chiefly to ex- 
amine if black layers were to be found similar to those which I had ob- 
served at Portstewart and Ballintoy. My astonishment may therefore be 
imagined when, in addition to the black layers which I was in search 
of, I found the ground in places literally covered with flint flakes and 
scrapers. My time was limited, and I could scarcely spare a full day 
among the hills on any occasion; yet, notwithstanding this, and that 
it was an unknown place to me, where I had to walk backwards and 
forwards so as to take a proper survey, and miss nothing, I brought 
away in three short visits upwards of one thousand scrapers, forty-one 
arrow-heads, forty-six scrapers with concave scraping edge, besides 
hammer stones, dressed flakes, and several other articles of flint more 
or less dressed. The Rev. Canon Grainger, M.R.I.A., accompanied 
me on the third occasion, and also obtained a very nice series of ob- 
jects, among which there was a small stone bead, similar to others 
found by me at Portstewart; and also a quartzite pebble with a linear 
groove on each side, and of the kind described as sling-stones in the 
Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy. 
The Sandhills are a series of irregular ridges and mounds of sand, 
heaped up by the wind, with decp pits between. The elevated parts 
have a covering of grass, in some places only of bent grass, but in others 
of different grasses mixed with moss, wild strawberry, bramble, and 
bracken, but the hollows are, as a rule, bare. The sand on the bare 
R.I. A. PROC., SER. II., VOL. I1.—POL. LIT. AND ANTIQ. I 
