[Illustration: Fig. 145.—Thames, London. 1∕2]
The specimen shown in Fig. 145 was found in the Thames, at London, and is now in the British Museum. In form it is curiously like |220| a metallic hammer, swelling out around the shaft-hole, and tapering down to a round flat face at each extremity. So far as I know, it is unique of its kind in this country. It is more probably the head of a war mace than that of an ordinary hammer. A somewhat similar hammer, of porphyry, is in the museum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft at Leipzig. It is, however, shorter in its proportions.
[Illustration: Fig. 145A.—Kirkinner. 1∕2]
A stone hammer found at Claycrop, Kirkinner,[779] Wigtownshire, is, by the courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 145A. In form, it is very like Fig. 136A from Wick, but blunter at the edge.
The instrument shown in Fig. 146 is perhaps more like a blunted axe-hammer than a simple hammer. It has at one end a much-rounded point, and at the other is nearly straight across, though rounded in the other direction. It would appear to be a weapon |221| rather than a tool. It is formed of greenstone, and was found near Scarborough, being now in the museum at the Leeds Philosophical Hall. A similar form has been found in Italy.[780]
[Illustration: Fig. 146.—Scarborough. 1∕2]
A beautifully finished hammer-head, cross-paned at both ends, and with a parallel polished shaft-hole, is shown in Fig. 147. It is of pale mottled green gneissose rock, with veins of transparent pale green, like jade, and was found in a barrow in Shetland. It is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also another of the same form, but broader and much more weathered, which was found at Scarpiegarth,[781] also in Shetland. Mr. J. W. Cursiter has another of these ruder examples (3 1∕2 inches) from Firth. He has also a very highly polished specimen made of serpentine (4 inches) subquadrate in section, and with hemispherical ends, from Lingrow, Orkney. The perforation is conical, being 1 inch in diameter on one face and only 1∕2 inch on the other. A remarkably elegant instrument of this kind, formed of a quartzose metamorphic rock, striped green and white, and evidently selected for its beauty, is in the well-known Greenwell Collection. It was found in Caithness. It is polished all over, and 4 1∕4 inches long, of oval section, with the ends slightly rounded. The shaft-hole is parallel, 1∕2 inch in diameter, and about 3∕4 inch nearer to one end than to the other. In the same collection is another specimen, rather more elongated in form, and of more ordinary material, found near Harome, in Yorkshire, in a district where a number of stone implements of rare types have been discovered. It is of clay-slate, 5 1∕4 inches long, and of oval section. The shaft-hole tapers from 1 inch at the faces to 9∕16 inch in the centre. A shorter hammer, of gneiss, 3 3∕4 inches long, and of similar section, |222| with a parallel shaft-hole 5∕8 inch in diameter, was found near Blair-Drummond, and is now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It has a thin rounded edge at one end, and is obtuse at the other, as if it had been broken and subsequently rounded over. The form occasionally occurs in the South of England. In the British Museum is a beautiful specimen (4 1∕4 inches) from Twickenham, and another of more ordinary stone from the Thames, which was formerly in the Roots Collection.