210 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
opportunities for visiting Larne, was very diligent, and collected 
a fine series of implements, including a magnificent scraper, the 
largest I have ever seen. These, I think, he intends to describe 
and figure, and I shall therefore in any references I make con- 
fine myself chiefly to those objects which I have found myself. 
I had obtained an implement from the gravel of the raised beach 
as far back as 1878, and several other objects having the character of 
implements, since that period; but being spurred into greater activity 
by Mr. Buick’s exertions, I have given the subject closer attention 
than usual during the past twelve months, and have not only gained 
a much clearer insight into the nature of the raised beach, but have 
added to my collection nearly one hundred implements. 
Taking a general survey of the remains of the raised beach where 
it is spread out over the present shore, one is struck with the abun- 
dance of cores and flakes; but on looking for hammer-stones, of the 
kind usually got among the flakes and cores of other flint factories, 
they cannot be found. This absence of quartzite hammer-stones has 
struck several observers, and various theories have been advanced for 
their absence. I did not give this matter any special study until 
Mr. Worthington G. Smith, F.L.8., M.A.I., who has investigated river 
terraces in England, and discovered ancient palaeolithic floors and 
sites of manufactories, and found also an absence of hammer-stones, 
wrote to me for some specimens to distribute among workmen as 
examples. The subject being thus pressed on my attention, I made a 
thorough search among the cores and flakes at Larne, without being 
successtul in finding any undoubted specimen of the characteristic 
quartzite pebbles with abraded ends, but I observed a considerable 
number of pear-shaped flint stones, which had received a considerable 
amount of flaking, and yet could not be described as cores. The real 
core had one constant character. Before the flint-worker commenced 
striking off a succession of flakes, the flint pebble he intended to work 
with was evidently first severed by a blow across its shorter axis, and 
from the flat freshly-broken surface the flakes were struck off at right 
angles; but the pear-shaped stones were very frequently nodules with 
a rounded or dressed butt, filling the hand well, and having small 
flakes radiating from the point. From experimenting with similar 
stones as hammers, I found small flakes were dislodged at the place 
where I struck; and this, taken in connexion with the fact that some of 
the smaller ends were more or less bruised, forced the conclusion on my 
mind that these were the hammer-stones used by the Larne flint- 
workers. J communicated this fact to Mr. Worthington Smith, and 
when visiting London in the autumn of last year I brought to him some 
of these implements, but he informed me that he had not at that time 
seen anything like them. In reply to a letter which I recently wrote 
to him on the subject, he says :—‘‘ As for the Larne hammers, and 
similar stones in gravel, I believe you are quite right.”’ He has since 
found three quartzite pebbles with bruised ends, but ‘‘can always find 
rude nodules of flint showing probable traces of hammering.” This 
opinion I look on as of very great value, as Mr. Worthington Smith 
has had much experience, having collected upwards of one thousand 
