president's address. 235 



small slab with the puzzling cup-incision, very similar in appear- 

 ance to one which I had found in an ancient British hut- circle 

 near Birtley, and to two others discovered near Cambo, of which 

 one was within a large tumulus, on which an urn had been in- 

 verted, containing the remains of a little child. The cup-inci- 

 sion is the simplest form of those mysterious rock-markings first 

 found in the north of Northumberland, and since discovered on 

 rocks, and so-called Druidical stones, from Argyleshire to Corn- 

 wall. The other was the curious grooved implement of sandstone, 

 like a ship's block, the use of which is unknown. Similar grooved 

 and notched stone blocks have been found in connection with 

 Picts' houses in Orkney, in Caithness, in Ireland, Scandinavia, 

 and the lake-dwellings of Italy. * Some consider that they were 

 employed as sinkers for fishing, as they have usually been found 

 near the sea or inland lakes. But this conjecture of the Scandin- 

 avian antiquaries is set aside by others, in favour of their use, 

 when attached to a thong and swung round, as a weapon like the 

 flail-stone mentioned in the early annals of Ireland. Yet, it is 

 equally probable that they have been employed as sharpening 

 stones for weapons and implements. One or two specimens may 

 be seen in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 

 in Edinburgh. Among the osseous relics were apparently some 

 skulls and remains of native British oxen, Bos longifrons, the 

 small dark-coloured breed of shorthorns, ancestors of the Welsh 

 and Highland cattle, not of the famous herds of Chillingham 

 Park, Hamilton Palace, and Chartley Park, in Staffordshire, as 

 is commonly supposed ; the latter are the larger, light-coloured 

 urus type, introduced by the Saxons in the fifth century. f 

 Portions of red-deer horns, tusks of wild-boar, teeth of small 

 British horses that once drew the Bonian hi gee or Celtic Essedai% 

 had been disinterred; and also, more noticeable and of deeper 

 interest than these, parts of three or four different human skele- 

 tons, Boman or Celt, who had fallen, perhaps, in some sudden 



* " Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot.," Vol. VII., p. 50 and 75. "Evan's Ancient Stone Imple- 

 ments of Great Britain," p. 104 and 229. 



t "Cave Hunting," by Professor Boyd-Dawkins, Chap. III., p. 88. 



X A portion of the bronze buckle of the horse-trappings Of a late British Chariot was 

 discovered in the chief circular dwelling of the Carry House Camp, near Birtlcy. 



