290 



I have also been entrusted by his lordship with the following va- 

 luable collection of antiquities, found in Toneymore Crannoge, which 

 have been referred to in my paper laid before the Academy, on the last 

 night of meeting, and also several found during the past week, as the 

 excavation is still going on : — 



Pive pieces of oak and other timber, which formed the stakes and 

 framework of the crannoge. One of these, a round stake, seven and a 

 half feet long, and eight inches thick, is worthy of comparison with that 

 from a Swiss Pfaulhauten, recently brought from Lausanne, and pre- 

 sented to the Academy by Mr. Starkey, which is only four and a half 

 feet long, with an average thickness of three and a quarter inches. The 

 portion which was above ground in each is one foot. The outer surface 

 of both the Irish and Swiss specimens have cracked in precisely the 

 same manner. One of the timbers from Toneymore — thirty- five inches 

 long, ten broad, and six thick — has a mortise cut in its centre 8 inches 

 by 5 ; it probably formed a portion of one of the crannoge houses, which 

 appear to have been constructed like the square wooden house found in 

 the bog of Drumkein, county of Donegal, in 1833, and the base of which 

 was twenty-six feet below the surface. See the model of it in the Mu- 

 seum, presented by Sir Thomas Larcom, and described in the Catalogue, 

 part I., p. 235. Another portion, with a smaller ^mortise at one end, 

 appears to have been part of the roof. These are the only remains of 

 crannoge structures as yet possessed by the Academy. 



A very perfect quern, seventeen inches in diameter, with the upper 

 surface of the top stone highly decorated; — found at the bottom and near 

 the centre of the crannoge. 



Several pieces of slag, — tending to prove that iron smelting was 

 carried on in this crannoge. 



A barrel-shaped piece of wood, three and a quarter inches long, 

 hollow throughout, and perforated with six holes ; either used in weav- 

 ing or as a net-float. 



Three flat circular stone discs or quoits, averaging three and a quar- 

 ter inches in diameter, and half an inch thick, similar to those on Tray 

 K in the Museum, and described at pp. 96 and 99 in the printed Cata- 

 logue. 



A fragment of what would appear to be the stone coulter of a 

 plough, now thirteen inches long, and having an artificial hole near the 

 broad end for attaching it to the beam. 



A most perfect and highly decorated mortar, eight inches high by 

 seventeen and a half wide, decorated at the corners with four grotesque 

 figures. 



A stone mould, ten inches long, with the casting groove in the long- 

 axis. 



A four-sided whetstone, twenty inches by three, the largest ever 

 presented to the Museum ; much worn. Eleven fragments of sharpen- 

 ing stones, of which two are perforated and one oval, — averaging from 

 two and a half to six inches long. 



