Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/266

244 well-marked depression about inch, deep in the centre of each face. The periphery is much worn away by use.

A fine-grained sandstone pebble, in form like a small cheese, about 3 inches in diameter, having the two faces smooth and perfectly flat, was found at Red Hill, near Reigate, and was regarded as a muller or pounding-stone used possibly in husking or bruising grain; or even for chipping flint, its surface bearing the mark of long-continued use as a pestle or hammer. "Precisely similar objects have been found in Northumberland, and other parts of England."

Canon Greenwell informs me that about twenty such, differing in size and thickness, were found on Corbridge Fell, together with several stone balls. He thinks they may possibly have been used in some game. A paper on the stone hammer and its various uses has been published by Mr. J. D. McGuire.

The circular stone from Upton Lovel Barrow, engraved by Sir E. Colt Hoare, appears to be a hammer or, more probably, a rubbing-stone, but it is worn to a ridge all round the periphery. I have a precisely similar instrument from Ireland. Other mullers from Wiltshire barrows have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Several such discoidal stones, somewhat faceted on their periphery, were found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, in his examination of the ancient circular habitations in Holyhead Island, and some have been engraved.

An almost spherical stone, but flattened above and below, where the surface is slightly polished, was found in Whittington Wood, Gloucestershire, and exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1866. It is of quartzite, about 3 inches in diameter. Another, of the same size, of depressed spherical form, was found in Denbighshire, and another flat disc of quartz in Aberdeenshire.

Pebbles that have been used in this way, as pounders or mullers, belong to various ages and different degrees of civilization. Some well worn have been found in Yorkshire barrows and elsewhere. One from Philiphaugh, Selkirkshire, has been figured. I have one such, worn into an almost cubical form, which was found with Roman remains at Poitiers, and I have seen several others said to be of Roman date. A pounding-stone of much the same form as Fig. 165, found on the summit of the Mont d'Or, Lyonnais, has been engraved by M. Chantre, with others of the same character. I have seen examples in Germany.

I have a flat granite pebble, about 3 inches by 3 inches, the sides straight, the ends round, and with well-marked circular depressions in each face, from Cayuga County, New York. It has certainly been used as a hammer-stone. Such mullers are by no means uncommon in North America. Some of the American stone discs, which are