Know1Ees— On Pre-historic Implements, &c. Ill 
I found a stone with a large cup-like hollow on one side, and a 
smaller depression on the other, but the hollows are not opposite. 
The larger hollow appears to have been artificially smoothed, but the 
original crust of the stone has been removed by weathering. The two 
hollows communicate by a small oblique opening. The bead is of the 
same type as those which I found at Portstewart, and is made, I be- 
lieve, of the same material—serpentine. The beads from Portstewart 
are very small, about the size of the smallest shirt buttons, and not 
unlike them in shape, being somewhat rounded on one side, and cup- 
shaped on the other. I have a considerable number of larger beads, 
or amulets, of the same material, found in different parts of Co. Antrim. 
They are flat, and the edges not dressed into a circular shape, but re- 
taining any irregular outline that the stone may have had at first, 
though highly polished. They are frequently of a beautiful green 
colour, and I believe from the circumstances I have stated that the 
material must have been highly prized. I do not find that the Royal 
Irish Academy have any of these in their Collection. 
The sling-stone, as such stones are named in the Catalogue of the 
Royal Irish Academy, is a quartzite pebble, with a groove on each 
face, such as might be made by rubbing a pointed instrument back- 
wards and forwards. It was found among a heap of pebbles at a short 
distance from a spot where scrapers had been picked up, but not just 
in association with them. Mr. Evans, in ‘‘ Stone Implements and 
Ornaments of Great Britain,” supposes that such stones are whetstones, 
and states that they are not met with in England as a rule, but that 
stones of a somewhat similar kind are found in Scandinavia, of shuttle- 
like form, and having a furrow or groove round the edge. I have one 
of those shuttle-like objects, and the small groove on the face is ex- 
actly similar in character to the grooves on our Irish “sling-stones.”’ 
I have fifty-two of these so-called Ivish sling-stones, and I observe 
that where the stone is handsome, it has been carefully dressed into 
an oval or shuttle-shaped form, and bevelled all round to a pretty thin 
edge. These Scandinavian and Irish whetstones, for such I believe 
them to be, were in my mind used for identically similar purposes; but 
the question naturally arises, why was a groove made round the edge 
in the one case, and the edge bevelled so as to make it thin in the 
other ? Now, I would suggest that this is a nice development problem. 
In these early times, when pockets and travelling-bags were not in- 
vented, the necessity for carrying objects about would be greatly felt ; 
and I think, in regard to the stones under consideration, the problem 
was solved by two separate peoples in different ways. The one made 
a groove round which a thong could be tied; and the other bevelled 
the edge for the purpose of inserting it into a frame or binding of 
leather; and thus in both cases the stones could easily be carried about 
by suspending them from the dress. The grooves on the different 
sides of our Irish specimens generally run in the direction of the longer 
axis of the stone, and as a rule the grooves on the opposite sides form 
a small angle with each other, though I have found them perfectly 
parallel, and also crossing at right angles. 
