100 Proceedings of the Boyal Physical Society, 



the use of the crescent also belonged to the age of bronze. M. 

 Troyon quotes from the Eeport of our Honorary Member, Dr 

 Ferdinand Keller, in 1858, various explanations of the use or 

 meaning of this religious symbol as he terms it, of the crescent. 

 He supposes these crescent-shaped bodies had do practical use, 

 but were placed either as ornaments on or in their houses, or were 

 used as objects of worship. He refers to the worship of the moon 

 by the G-ermans, and the use of the crescent and the moon in the 

 worship of the Druids, the moon being considered by them as 

 " that which heals all things." These mysterious healing virtues, 

 which the G-auls also attributed to the moon as the " all healer," 

 sufficiently explain, he thinks, the signification of the images of 

 the crescent discovered at the lake towns of Steinberg and Ebers- 

 berg, and he accordingly comes to the conclusion, that these various 

 crescent-shaped bodies had been panaceas, or important healing 

 amulets. Dr Keller also mentions, that Colonel Schwab has in 

 his collection an article of bronze, in the form of a crescent, fur- 

 nished on its convex side with a projecting handle, being the 

 implement to which I have already referred, and figured ; it is 

 described as being very thin or slender, and incapable of resisting 

 much pressure. Dr Keller says, it would be difficult to say whether 

 it has served for a cutting instrument ; but it may, like the figures 

 in pottery, &c, of the crescent, have been employed as a sort of 

 amulet, or as an instrument of healing. 1 



After the references by these learned authorities to the mys- 

 terious symbol of the crescent, it may seem rather presumptuous 

 in me, who have only seen the drawings, and read the descriptions 

 of these peculiar crescent-shaped pieces of pottery and stone, to 

 suggest at least the possibility of their having had a more practical 

 use. From the great resemblance in the character of the coarse 

 pottery of which they are formed, with its imbedded fragments of 

 quartz, to the same arrangement — of broken pieces of quartz 

 imbedded in the clay of which the Eoman mortaria were formed 

 —•manifestly to increase their grinding power; as shown, indeed, 

 in some of the portions of Koman mortars, presented by me to the 

 Museum, which were found at Newstead, Eoxburgh shire. I am 

 much inclined to assume, that these crescent-shaped bodies, may 

 have been simply rubbers, pestles, or grinding instruments, to be 

 used by one or both hands according to their size, with or without 

 a mortarium, for crushing or rubbing down the various grains, or 

 harder articles of human food, which, from the remains found in 

 1 M. Troyon's Habit. Lacust., p. 188. 



