Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/49

Rh the cabin, and remains of other similar huts adjoining were seen but not explored. A stone celt, found in the interior of the hut, and a piece of leather sandal, also an arrow-head of flint, and in the bog close at hand a wooden sword, give evidence of the remote antiquity of this building, which may be taken as a type of the early dwellings on the Crannoge islands.

'The whole structure,' says Captain Mudge, 'was wrought with the rudest kind of implements, and the labour bestowed on it must have been immense. The wood of the mortises was more bruised than cut, as if by a blunt stone chisel.' Such a chisel lay on the floor of the hut, and by comparing it with the marks of the tool used in forming the mortises, they were found 'to correspond exactly, even to the slight curved exterior of the chisel; but the logs had been hewn by a larger instrument, in the shape of an axe. On the floor of the dwelling lay a slab of freestone, three feet long and fourteen inches thick, in the centre of which was a small pit three quarters of an inch deep, which had been chiselled out. This is presumed to have been used for holding nuts to be cracked by means of one of the round shingle stones, also found there, which had served as a hammer. Some entire hazel-nuts and a great quantity of broken shells were strewed about the floor.'

The foundations of the house were made of fine sand, such as is found with shingle on the sea-shore about two miles distant. Below the layer of sand the bog or peat was ascertained, on probing it with an instrument, to be at least fifteen feet thick. Although the interior of the building when discovered was full of 'bog' or peaty matter, it seems when inhabited to have been surrounded by growing trees, some of the trunks and roots of which are still preserved in their