Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/464

442 polishing the linen. The handle or stalk is ribbed and about 4 inches long. They are of both clear and of bottle-green glass. A small slickstone of black glass without a handle was found in a Viking grave of a woman in Islay. The same form was recently in use in Scotland. A large one is in the Kirkcudbright Museum. Another provided with a long smooth handle has likewise been figured. Fig. 361.—Holyhead.

A four-sided implement of stone, fashioned with considerable care, the sides flat and smooth, and with an edge at one end, was found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, F.S.A., at Pen-y-Bonc, and is shown in Fig. 361, kindly lent to me by him. It has been regarded as a burnisher or polishing stone. A similar specimen is in the Blackmore Museum.

Mr. Syer Cuming mentions the discovery, at Alchester, Oxfordshire, of a flat pyriform piece of red sandstone, 3 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 1 inch thick in the middle, with the edges rounded, and the whole surface, with the exception of the obtuse end, polished; and he inclines to the belief that it was employed in smoothing hides and rendering them pliant for clothing. Another "slickstone for tawing or softening hides by friction," formed of quartz, 6 inches broad by 2 inches in height, with a depression on either side to admit the finger and thumb, and having the surface rounded and polished by use, was found at a depth of three feet in the ground at Culter, Lanarkshire. In the Shrewsbury Museum is a perforated stone in shape like a broad hoe, but with rounded edges; it is thought to be a currier's tool. Three flint pebbles found with late Celtic enamelled bronze horse-trappings at Westhall, Suffolk, and having one or both