82 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the finding and associations of objects were frequently not preserved, so that 

 these details are unknown about many of the specimens in the Museum. 

 But so far as the records are available, they show that few celts have been 

 found associated with burials: 1 the greater number have been accidentally 

 discovered in agricultural operations, in draining or excavating the beds of 

 rivers or the neighbourhood of lakes, or in cutting turf bogs for fuel. 



It is often difficult to determine whether associated finds of stone celts 

 not obtained from interments, shonld he considered either as implement- 

 makers' hoards, or as votive offerings, or as household goods hidden by their 

 possessors in the ground when hurriedly compelled to leave their dwellings 

 owing to some unfriendly raid or other cause ; in the latter case the recovery 

 of the implements may have been prevented by the death of the owners or 

 their flight t<> a remote locality. 



tain tin- material of which a polished celt is composed is not easy. 

 Geologi- iv about giving an opinion without examining a section of 



the implement under a microscope. Private collectors and curators of 

 Museums sometimes have difficulty in getting their implements properly 



mined: thus statements as to the composition of celts are often inaccu- 

 rate; and in ma: i has not been possible to give the composition of 

 tioned in the course of the present paper. 



The finds are described in the alphabetical order of the counties in which 

 they h.iv nrred : — 



''//'. — Mr. W. -T. K: k i.a., of Ballymena, Co. Antrim, 



whose collection of Irish S Lge antiquities is known to all students of 



the possesses an int< of six polished stone celts. They 



together close to a sandstone grinding slab, four feet from 

 the surface, in the brick-clay of Culbane. Mr. Rnowles 1 has suggested that 

 the pers 'ii wl 1 the implements had intended to return the next day 



and grii. . hut that in the meantime a flood had occurred in the Bann 



River, which either took a long time in subsiding, or else covered the axes 

 and sjab with a deposit of mud so that the place could not again be found. 

 The objects comprised in this find have been lent to the Academy for exhibi- 

 tion in the National Museum. The grinding slal> has been illustrated by 

 Mr. Knowles f it is made of sandstone, and measures 13 inches in length 

 and 8 inches in breadth ; it has been ground on both its flat faces. The butts 



> This also appears to be the case in Scotland ; see Anderson, Srolland in Pagan 



. pp. 305, 306. 

 : JV - 0, p. 219. 



I.. I'UteXIX. 128, 



