174 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
there will be found resting on it, and projecting from it, implements, 
shells, and broken and split bones. In digging into this old surface 
we will find the cores from which flakes were struck off, the flakes 
themselves and implements made from them, the hammer-stones used 
in striking off the flakes, and the rests, or anvil-stones, used for 
resting the core on when being struck with the hammer-stone. 
Fragments of pottery, pins and needles of bone, and a variety of 
other objects, may be found buried up in this dark-coloured eld 
surface. The black colour is largely due to the fragments of charred 
wood which the old surface contains ; but the absorption of decaying 
animal and vegetable matter, which would, no doubt, be constantly 
thrown about at the time of occupation, must have assisted in 
darkening it. In addition to its difference in colour from the sand 
above and below, the old surface is also firmer, and resists the de- 
nuding action of the wind longer, than the discoloured sand; therefore 
we find occasionally large patches of it lying bare ; but in many 
instances the old surface itself has also been carried away, and the 
implements and other remains which it contained will be found lying 
on the sand. In such cases dark bands will be seen along the sides of 
the pits. These bands are the edges of the old surface, and it was 
seeing it appear in this way which first led me to call it the black 
layer. This old surface varies in thickness from three or four inches 
up to three feet. It is sometimes very rich in remains, and at others 
nearly barren. The most productive parts are generally to be found 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the hut sites. 
Whitepaek Bay. 
The old surface at this place has proved very rich in prehistoric 
remains, and it is still very far from being exhausted. The sandy 
covering has been removed within a comparatively recent period, as I 
learned from an old man in the neighbourhood, that he remembered 
its being covered with a grassy sward where it is now bare, and cattle 
grazing on it, and several portions of the covering, which within my 
own memory stood up as pillars, with a grassy sward on the top, have 
now vanished. I have spent a good amount of time among these sand- 
hills during the past fifteen or sixteen years, and have obtained a 
large series of objects, and some of my archaeological friends, who are 
now very well acquainted with the nature of the place, have obtained 
numerous specimens. I believe it would be no exaggeration to say 
that between 3000 and 4000 manufactured articles have been already 
