486 
Roman introduction. But the stone quern is an utensil of 
the remotest human antiquity. Stone querns have been found 
in Ireland associated with bones of the extinct fossil Elk, at 
great depths in the Irish bogs, under circumstances shewing 
a very high antiquity. Mr. Daniel Wilson states that stone 
querns are found in Orkney, and the north of Scotland, 
amongst the earliest traces of the human race.* I must also 
demur to the opinion that the iron appendage of the quern 
determines its Roman or subsequent date. It is true that for 
many centuries before the Roman advent, bronze was the 
metal chiefly in use amongst the ancient Britons, and that 
iron came into much more general use after the Roman 
invasion, yet iron was long employed in Britain before this 
age. Julius Caesar speaks of the Britons, on his arrival, as 
using ring money of iron. They also wore at that time 
personal ornaments and trinkets of iron.f The ancient 
bronze leaf-shaped sword had been long superseded by 
the iron sword in Western Europe, when the Gauls en- 
countered the veteran legions Rome. The same is no less 
true of the sword of the contemporary Britons, who excited 
the ire of Caesar by the aid they afforded the Gauls in their 
war with the Romans. 
The earthen vessel has also been pronounced by some 
Roman, by others Anglo-Saxon, but, I must confess that its 
rude workmanship and unpretending form, would lead me to 
assign to it a much earlier date. Although it has been sub- 
jected to the action of the kiln, it appears in the imperfectly 
baked state of pottery which prevailed when the kiln was 
being introduced ; and the markings in the interior, at most 
only doubtfully shew the action of the potter's wheel ; but 
even if the action of the kiln and the potter's wheel were 
indubitably evident, yet these circumstances do not neces- 
sarily carry it down to the Roman or Saxon ages. I find 
* Wilson's Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, pp. 423-425. f Ibid, p. 341. 
