On a Piece of Perforated Slate 



109 



predecessors, these people had nevertheless acquired some valuable 

 arts, amougst others, as we have already seen, that of working in 

 iron : an art which has probably contributed more than any other 

 to establish that high position amongst the nations of the earth, 

 which Great Britain now enjoys. 



ON A PIECE OF PERFORATED 



Ulate fottnb at Jftingtow, Mowesteisjmt, 



AND ILLUSTRATIVE OE THE 



incient nt of JMate (WrUte Mmbtxth m farafos in Wiltsljta. 



By the Rev. A. H. Winnington Ingram, F.G.S., Hon. Canon. 



HE oblong piece of chlorite slate figured in plate vi., a. b. c. 

 in its actual size 5§ inches long, If inches broad, and J of 

 an inch thick, smoothed on both faces and hollowed on one side, 

 perforated by four holes, countersunk on the concave surface, one 

 hole at each corner, on the convex side just large enough to allow 

 a fine ligament to pass through, was taken from a gravel pit situ- 

 ated at an elevation of about one hundred feet above the river Avon, 

 on the Parks farm, in the hamlet of Aldington in Worcestershire, 

 at the bottom of the gravel at the depth of five feet from the top 

 of the soil. The association of one lower and two upper dome- 

 shaped quernstones with the article in the same pit, though these 

 lay a foot nearer the surface, warrant the inference that the locality 

 where they were deposited had been occupied in early times by the 

 rude dwellings of some primitive race, the floors of whose habita- 

 tions were sunk into the gravel, and that from them the piece of 

 slate had worked down to the depth at which it was discovered. 

 The concave form and size of the slate seem to render it a convenient 

 appendage to the wrist, and from its adaptability to such a use it 



