60 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



invention. Strabo mentions that a mill of this kind was erected in- 

 Pontus (in Asia) at the palace of King Mithridates (Strabo, xii., 3, 

 § 30), which is the earliest of which we have any record. Indeed, we 

 have it on Roman authority that water-mills were not introduced in 

 Italy before the time of Julius Caesar (who diedB.c. 44), and were then 

 only used by a few individuals (Yitruvius x., 5, 2). Pliny's slight 

 notice of them, which only occurs in one sentence of his entire gi'eat 

 work, shows that they were by no means common in his day (Plin. 

 lib. xviii., c. 10). He died a.d. 79. The earliest mentions of public 

 water-mills is about the year 398, under the Emperors Arcadius and 

 Honorius ; and the manner in which they are referred to in the laws 

 of the period shows that they were then a novelty (Code Teod. 14, 15). 

 Now it was at this very time that the Romans finally abandoned 

 Britain. It appears therefore that the Romans never used water- 

 mills to any great extent, nor have we any satisfactory proof that 

 they established such mills at each of their military stations in 

 Britain. Many small millstones, indeed, belonging to the Roman 

 hand-jmW.^, have been discovered on the sites of the Roman stations, 

 but so far as I am aware only a few doubtful cases have been brought 

 forward to prove the existence of water-mills at those places. 



" Por the foregoing reasons and from the consideration that there 

 never was a friendly intercourse maintained between Ireland and the 

 Roman province, it seems unlikely that water-mills were introduced 

 into this country from Roman Britain. "We must therefore seek for 

 their origin in some other quarter, and, in my opinion, the weight of 

 probability rests on the North of Europe. Although the Danes and 

 Noi'wegians did not efiEect their conquest of Ireland for many centuries ■ 

 after the departure of the Romans from theii' British province, they, 

 and the other maritime tribes in the neighbourhood of the Baltic had 

 maintained an intercoui'se with these islands for an indefijiite 

 period. The details of this intercourse is unknown to us further 

 than what may be gathered from scanty allusions in old Irish Annals 

 and Icelandic sagas. But there seems to be little doubt that during 

 the obscure period alluded to these Gothic tribes had been gradually 

 colonizing the east and north of Scotland, and of coui'se bringing 

 within them whatever arts of civilization they possessed, which there 

 is reason to believe were greatly superior to those existing in their 

 new colonies. A people who could send out fleets of well-equipped 

 vessels and armies of mailed warriors, sweeping the coasts of Europe, 

 and conquering wherever they appeared, must have possessed con- 

 siderable mechanical skill, and were not likely to be without water- 



