140 PERFORATED STONES. 



been spindle-whorls rather than weights to fishing-nets."* The form of 

 the implements just mentioned is like that represented on Plate X, Figs. 

 17, 19, 33, &c, the stone being of considerable thickness and the hole 

 countersunk on each face. 



I now have to note another form of these stones from the lake dwell- 

 ings in the Atter See (Upper Austria) as described and figured in Mr. Lee's 

 second edition of Dr. Keller's Lake Dwellings.f . This stone very closely 

 resembles the one from California represented on Plate X, Fig. 34, and, like 

 the California specimen, it has the hole of nearly the same size throughout. 

 Count von Wurm brand's description is as follows: "There was a very 

 peculiar round stone ball of polished serpentine found here, which had a well- 

 formed hole in the middle for a handle. It must have been too costly for 

 a net-sinker, or for any object of daily use. We may probably consider it 

 as a weapon or a mace." With these views as to this stone being probably 

 the head of a mace I am inclined to concur, and also to consider of the same 

 character the specimen found at Robenhausen and described by Dr. Keller.J 

 Of this last Dr. Keller writes : "A very singular stone implement. It is 

 made of tough stone like serpentine, with a round hole in the middle " 

 The figure given represents this implement as a thin flat disk, about four 

 and a half inches in diameter, with a sharp cutting edge, and a hole in the 

 centre about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The very close resem- 

 blance of this stone with one now forming the head of a club from Queens- 

 land, which will be described farther on, is such as to suggest the proba- 

 bility that it was used in the same way. 



Such perforated stones as are now under consideration are, apparently, 

 not very abundant in the north of Europe, though there are fifteen speci- 

 mens in the Peabody Museum, obtained from Denmark, contained in the 

 " Rose Collection." Several of these are represented on Plate X, Figs. 6, 

 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 17. Of these the two represented by Figs. 14 and 

 17 are thick oval stones, with countersunk holes, and in every way like 

 examples from the Swiss lakes and from California, and also like the one 



* An illustration of one of these stones is given in the translation of Professor Desor's Memoir, 

 contained in the Smithsonian Report for 1865, p. 365. 



t Abstract, of an account by Count von Wurmhrand, p. 624, pi. esc, fig. 6. 

 } Lake Dwellings, Lee's second edition, p. 58, pi. sii, figs. 4, 5. 



