Archceologia. 311 



become competent antiquaries. The only real effect of the law which 

 creates a different claimant from the finder is to enforce concealment, 

 which, of course, implies the loss of a great proportion of the objects 

 found. It is generally a labourer who finds such object, while at 

 work in the fields, or perhaps digging his own garden ; he can see 

 no reason why it should not be his own as much as the pebble he 

 picks up and puts in his pocket, but he has an imperfect conviction 

 that it has some value, and that he is liable to be deprived of it. He, 

 therefore, keeps it from the knowledge of the people of the neigh- 

 bourhood, until he meets with a stranger, who gives him perhaps a 

 few pence for it, or he takes it to a neighbouring town, and sells it 

 for an equally small sum. In either case, he conceals the place 

 where it was found, or probably makes a false statement about it. 

 This is the injury which archaeological science sustains from the law 

 relating to treasure trove, and the only effective remedy to be found 

 for it is the spread of antiquarian tastes and antiquarian knowledge, 

 and free trade in antiquities. There is hardly any corner of England 

 at the present day where there are not two or three intelligent 

 antiqnaries in the neighbourhood who collect antiquities, or where 

 there is not within a moderate distance a local museum. If the 

 finders of antiquities felt assured that they were at full liberty to 

 sell what they found openly, they would soon be in communication 

 with these local antiquaries or with the curators of museums, and not 

 only would the antiquities be preserved, but also the particulars of 

 their discovery, in which, often, a great part of their value consists. 

 It only requires the power of doing openly that which is now done 

 in concealment. 



Accounts of discoveries of crannoges, or lake habitations, have 

 been frequently reported of late in Scotland and Ireland. They 

 are new objects of research, which, as might be expected, is fruitful 

 in discoveries. They appear to belong not to an extremely remote- 

 period, for the oldest of them are not probably older than the late 

 Roman period. One was lately traced in lowering the water of Grants- 

 town lake, in Queen's County, Ireland ; among the objects found- 

 in which were iron nails, with large heads, and other articles in 

 metal, bone, and wood. Traces of crannoges are also stated to have 

 been seen in Lough ISTeagh. Similar remains have been found in a 

 lake under the glebe-house, in the parish of Aghnamullen, in the 

 county of Monaghan, in connection with which a story is told, 

 which we can hardly help suspecting of a little Irish imagination. 

 The rector, sitting on the island, on the site of the crannoges, one 

 day saw what he thought to be a button on the leaf of a water- 

 plant, which had grown up from the bottom of the lake ; but, on 

 examination, it proved to be an old coin, a half-groat of King 

 Edward III., " some of the treasures of the lake being thus lifted to 

 the surface by the natural growth of the plant." No doubt some 

 ingenious individual had picked up the coin and put it on the leaf, 

 probably shortly before it so curiously attracted the rector's atten- 

 tion. To understand his more marvellous explanation of it, we 

 must suppose that the leaf of the water-plant was fully developed 

 in the bottom of the lake, beneath the surface where the coin lay, 



