112 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
Hammer stones of quartzite, granite, flint, and other tough rocks 
are found in considerable abundance. The ends are always much 
abraided, and sometimes pits occur on one or both sides, showing that 
they were used as anvil stones. 
Anvil stones are also plentiful, and are made of different kinds of 
rock. The finding of such stones at Dundrum, as well as at Port- 
stewart and Ballintoy, has, I think, given a clue to the formation of 
oval tool stones. The tool stones have, in my opinion, originated from 
anvil stones, the pit having been formed by the laying of the object to 
be hammered constantly on the same spot. However flakes may have 
been struck off by other peoples, or by savages in the present day, I 
am convinced that the ancient inhabitants of Dundrum, Portstewart, 
and Ballintoy laid the core on the anvil stone, and then separated the 
flake by striking with the hammer stone. The laying of the core for 
a certain length of time on the same spot produced a depression, which 
got deeper the longer it was used. I have observed stones having 
these depressions in all stages, from the first minute punctures, with 
sharp lines running from them to the margin of the stone, showing 
how the core had jerked to the side, down to the deep and regular de- 
pression. On a recent occasion I found at Ballintoy the half of one of 
these stones, with pretty deep marks on both sides and opposite each 
other. The stone had split into two equal parts exactly through the 
centre of the hollows. The portion of a tool stone which I excavated 
at Ballintoy in the summer of 1879 was also, strange to say, the half 
of a stone which had been split through the centre in the same way. 
The question now occurred to me, Why are they split across in this 
way ? and the answer seemed to me clear. They were anvil stones, 
and the constant hammering on the same spot split them. It occurred 
to me now to make an experiment. I took a quartzite hammer stone, 
which I had found at Ballintoy, and used it as an anvil stone, and 
taking another stone as a hammer and a piece of flint as a core, I com- 
menced hammering as if I were going to dislodge a flake. In a short 
time a pit was produced in the anvil stone, quite similar to the pits on 
the anvil stones from the Sandhills. I continued hammering, to see 
if at last the deeper hollow with regular outline, such as we see in the 
more finished tool stones, could be produced, but just when my object 
was very nearly attained, my anvil split. I can now explain a great 
deal which I previously could not understand about the large series of 
oval tool stones in my collection. I knew they could not have been 
manufactured for hammers, because some were too large to be handled, 
and others were too small to be of any use, and, besides, some were of 
stone not suitable for hammers. But where formed of quartzite or 
other tough stone, the ends are generally abraided. These had been 
made to serve the purpose of either hammer or anvil, as occasion re- 
quired. In the Christy Collection in London there is a mass of breccia, 
made up of flakes, broken bones, etc., from one of the Rock Shelters 
in France, and embedded in the mass I observed a stone with a cup- 
shaped pit. It appeared to me to have all the character of the tool 
stone. If you saw a tool stone embedded side by side with it, you 
