Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/330

 244 NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. which the timbers were supported are often sculptured into the form of a human head. The upper floors of a great number of these towers, how- ever, were supported by beams of timber let into the walls, or resting upon projecting ledges of masonry. The doorway is generally of small size, and is almost invariably defended by a machicolation placed at a great height above it. Most of these castles were ornamented with battlements resting upon slightly projecting corbel-tables, but the merlons are rarely pierced. The water was carried off the roof generally by means of small apertures left in the wall, just above the corbel-table, spouts rarely ap- pearing but in very late examples." Perhaps the most interesting and valuable part of the book is the con- cluding chapter of miscellaneous notices of the weapons, ornaments, &c., of the ancient Irish. " Regarding the vast number of antiques discovered from year to year (we might almost write daily) in the bogs, beds of rivers, and newly-ploughed lands of Ireland, we cannot help regretting that the feeling which now very generally leads to the preservation of these evi- dences of ancient Irish civilization, should have slept so long. Let any one enquire of a country watchmaker, of a few years' standing, whether he has ever been offered for sale any antique ornaments of gold or silver, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, his answer will be, ' Yes, many : but, as there was no one to purchase them, I melted them down.' If questioned as to their form and character, he will describe rings, fibulae, bracelets, perhaps torques, &c., generally adding that he regretted their destruction, as they were curiously engraved." Some good specimens of swords, spear heads, celts, stone hammers, arrow and spear heads, and of urns, are here engraved, but our limits compel us to be content with two later examples of a different kind. " The Cross of Cong, the gem of the Academy collection, affords most striking evidence of the advancement which the Irish artificers had made in several of the arts, and in general manufacturing skill, previous to the arrival of the English. It was made at Roscommon, by native Irishmen, about the year 1123, in the reign of Turlogh O'Conor, father of Roderic, the last monarch of Ireland, and contains what was supposed to be a piece of the true cross, as inscriptions in Irish, and Latin in the Irish character, upon two of its sides, distinctly record." "Among the more singular relics in the collection, a chalice of stone, the subject of the annexed wood-cut, is well worthy of observation. Though formed of so rude a material, there is nothing in its general form, or in the character of its decorations, to warrant a supposition that it be- longs to a very early period. Few chalices of an age prior to the twelfth century remain in Ireland, and any of a later period which have come under the observation of the writer are not very remarkable. A chalice of silver found in the ruins of Kilmallock abbey, was melted some years ago by a silversmith of Limerick, into whose hands it had fallen. Cups of stone appear not to have been uncommon among the Irish. An ancient vessel of that material, of a triangular form, remains, or very lately re-