Bronze Implement found near Ourrie, Mid-Lothian, 101 
these lake dwellings, are known to have been in use at the period 
of their occupation by man. The short projecting horns of the 
crescents, would assist in giving a more fixed, or firmer hold to the 
hands, while using them in the act of trituration or grinding.^ 
However this may have been, there seems to me at least, little 
doubt, that the bronze crescent, from its great resemblance in cha- 
racter to the implement found at Kinleith, and also those found in 
Ireland, might have had a practical use, and may be simply a 
variety in the pattern of this ancient form of bronze knife or razor. 
The hollow between the horns of this Swiss crescent, where the 
metal appears to be thicker, and not thinned down to a fine edge, 
as it is on its outer margins, might, by the finger being occasionally 
hooked over it, also assist in steadying the blade, held by its pro- 
jecting handle between the other fingers ; and in this way it would 
somewhat correspond to the one found near Currie. 
- Before concluding, I shall make a few remarks on the supposed 
Age of this instrument of bronze. — Shortly after its discovery, various 
antiquarian and geological friends, Mr John Stuart, Dr M'Eain, Mr 
Alexander Bryson, Mr William Turner, and others, went with me, 
at different times, and made careful examinations of the excavation, 
as the process of digging went on, and especial attention was paid 
to the beds cut through above the gravel ; there was not the 
slightest appearance of any pit or digging of any kind having ever 
been previously made, the beds of sand being quite undisturbed 
since their first deposition. My friends all agreed with me in 
thinking there was also no indication of any of the depth of these 
beds of sand being due to a landslip from the distant sloping banks 
at the sides of the valley, or any sudden occurrence of that kind. 
The upper beds being uniform in character, and comparatively 
free from stones, and so difi'erent from the rough gravel below; 
they were suggestive simply of a gradual deposit of silt from a 
nearly still pool or lake. 
The geologic history of the site being, apparently, that the bed 
of rough, clean, and large gravel at the bottom, proved the previous 
existence of the stream of a rapid river, over which man may have 
1 In a letter with which I have since been favoured by Mr Albert Way, he 
states, that from liis own examination of the Swiss crescents of clay and stone, 
he does not consider them adapted for any purpose of trituration, as suggested 
by me, and he agrees with Dr Keller in the conjecture of their having borne 
some relation to the religion, or worship, in these old lake homesteads ; Mr 
Way does not believe, however, in there being any connection between them 
and the crescent-shaped implement of bronze. 
