ation. Piles of wood, or heaps of stone and bones
driven into or heaped on the soil, formed the support of the crannoge.
They were used as places of retreat or concealment, and are usually
found near the ruins of such old forts or castles as are in the vicinity
of lakes or marshes. Sometimes they are connected with the mainland by a
causeway, but usually there is no appearance of any; and a small canoe
has been, with but very few exceptions, discovered in or near each
crannoge.

Since the investigation of these erections in Ireland, others have been
discovered in the Swiss lakes of a similar kind, and containing, or
rather formed on, the same extraordinary amount of bones heaped up
between the wooden piles.

The peculiar objects called celts, and the weapons and domestic utensils
of this or an earlier period, are a subject of scarcely less interest.
The use of the celt has fairly perplexed all antiquarian research. Its
name is derived not, as might be supposed, from the nation to whom this
distinctive appellation was given, but from the Latin word _celtis_, a
chisel. It is not known whether these celts, or the round, flat,
sharp-edged chisels, were called _Lia Miledh_, "warriors' stones." In
the record of the battle of the Ford of Comar, Westmeath, the use of
this instrument is thus described:--

"There came not a man of Lohar's people without a broad green spear, nor
without a dazzling shield, nor without a _Liagh-lamha-laich_ (a
champion's hand stone), stowed away in the hollow cavity of his
shield.... And Lohar carried his stone like each of his men; and seeing
the monarch his father standing in the ford with Ceat, son of Magach, at
one side, and Connall Cearnach at the other, to guard him, he grasped
his battle-stone quickly and dexterously, and threw it with all his
strength, and with unerring aim, at the king his father; and the massive
stone passed with a swift rotatory motion towards the king, and despite
the efforts of his two brave guardians, it struck him on the breast, and
laid him prostrate in the ford. The king, however, recovered from the
shock, arose, and placing his foot upon the formidable stone, pressed it
into the earth, where it remains to this day, with a third part of it
over ground, and the print of the king's foot visible upon it."

Flint proper, or chalk flint, is found but in few places in Ireland;
these are principally in the counties of Antrim, Down, and Derry. In the
absence of a knowle