MUSEUM 



OF THE 



Belfast Natural Ifistory and philosophical Society. 



CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTIONS. 



CLASS I.— ANTIQUITIES. 



Section I. — Irish Antiquities. 



Displayed in Room 3, on Ground Floor. The specimens have 

 been arranged in three Series. 



Series I. — Objects of Stone. 



Series II.— Objects of Metal. 



Series III. — Objects of Wood, Bone, Earthenware, Glass, and 

 Leather. 



Series I. — Objects of Stone. 



The Stone Implements included in this collection consist of 

 articles of more or less ancient date, and display various degrees 

 of skill and culture in the peoples by whom they were fabricated. 

 They are intended to illustrate the life-history of the population 

 of our country in former times. A large proportion of the objects 

 here enumerated are pre-historic, and lead us back to a period 

 when the arts of civilization had made but little progress, and 

 the natives were content to array themselves in the skins of beasts 

 slain by arrows, or by spears tipped only with flint. Whether 

 palaeolithic man found his way to Ireland seems, at present, to 

 be an undecided question ; — but at all events this country was 

 peopled at a very early date, when the rocks of our hills, and 

 the boulders of our gravels, furnished the materials from which 

 were fashioned the weapons employed in war and the chase, and 

 the tools used in domestic occupations. 



