162 Megalithic Structures [April, 



A few words about the stone-celt as associated with the pre- 

 sumed cromlech-builders of these islands may not be out of place 

 here. These celts comprise all chipping or hewing stones, Til- 

 hugger stem f which, according to their various modifications, may 

 have been hatchets, axes, chisels, adzes, or wedges, and have been 

 found generally throughout the islands in such numbers as serve to 

 show how universally they were used as domestic implements in 

 pre-historic times. They all belong to the Neolithic period of the 

 Stone age ; nor is it probable that any of the Palaeolithic flints would 

 be found on a granite island where little or no alluvial soil or drift 

 gravel exists. 



Mr. F. C. Lukis supplies me with the following list of celts, in 

 his private collection, which he has obtained in the bailiwick of 

 Guernsey (which includes Alderney, Sark, and Herm) alone, with 

 the parishes in which they were found : — 



Le Clos du Valle 33 



St. Sampson et l'Epine . . 46 

 Ste. Marie du Castel . . . . 22 



St. Andrew's 21 



St. Pierre-Port 11 



St. Martin's 

 St. Suuveur 

 St. Peter-in-the-Wood 



Torteval 



Forest 



Herm 



Sark 



Aldernev 



9 

 G 

 2 



M 



m 



- 



'Z 



3 





2 1 





55 

 5 





25 





12 





In ro:md numbers 200. 

 It must be remembered, 

 however, that this list 

 does not include frag- 

 ments of celts, great 

 numbers of which have 

 been collected 



Total .. ..197 



It will be seen from this list that the greatest Dumber of these 

 celts have been found in the parishes of St. Sampson and the Yale, 

 that is, in the northern part of the island. Perhaps this may be 

 accounted for by the circumstance that, prior to the year 1808, a 

 large moiety of both these parishes was cut off from the main island 

 at high water, and therefore less accessible ; consequently even now 

 there is more open common and waste ground, with less cultivation, 

 than in the rest of the island. ,So also there are more cromlechs 

 extant, and it is possible that their sites were chosen in this remote 

 locality on account of its partial inaccessibility. 



As to the celts, however, they are of all sorts and sizes, as ob- 

 served above, and singularly enough the materials of which they are 

 composed are not always native, as might be expected, but, on the 

 contrary, are as often as not foreign, not only to these islands but to 

 France and even to Europe occasionally, so that we are led to the 

 conclusion that these instruments have been imported from great 

 distances. 



