"Here I was shewn a couple of stone instruments yet differently shaped from those taken notice of before. The largest 7 inches long and 4 broad, ground thin, shaped like the segment of a circle, the circular side edged but pretty much broke, the chord thick like the back of a knife, and left so purposely; seems to have been used as a knife. The other 4 inches long, shaped pretty much like the axe (vide p. 83 supra); might have been the head of a spear or other long weapon." (Tour, p. 117.) Drawings of both these implements are given, and from an inspection of them there can be no doubt that the former belongs to a well-defined variety of the knives now under consideration, and which will be subsequently more fully explained. The other is manifestly a small stone celt. Writing later, p. 140, Mr Low states that "many of the stone weapons mentioned above are found in this parish (Northmavine), particularly seven in one place, but all dispersed before my arrival. They were found underground, forming a circle, the points toward the centre." The Rev. John Bryden, in his description of the united parishes of Sandsting and Aithsting in Shetland (Stat. Account of Zetland, 1841, pp. 112 et seq.), states that, on removing black unctuous earth from an urn discovered on the glebe, he found "lying at right angles in the bottom four pieces of broken stone axes," which appear from the context to have been portions of the oval-shaped knives. Mr Bryden explains that urns found in the locality "appeared to have been rudely wrought out of a coarse sandstone, and others out of a soft stone called kleber." He then goes on to describe these stone axes, which he calls steinbartes, and classifies them into single- and double-edged tools, the former being described as having a semilunar cutting edge, while in the latter the edge went nearly all round. Both the title (steinbarte) and classification are taken from Dr Hibbert's work on Shetland (p. 248). It appears, however, from the illustration on the plate at the end of the volume that the single-edged steinbarte is merely the ordinary stone axe-an inference which is corroborated by the dimensions of the implement figured, viz. 6 inches long, 2 broad, and 1 inch thick. "The blades of steinbartes," writes Mr Bryden, "are very abundantly found in Shetland. Not unfrequently several of them are discovered buried together, thus indicating a little armoury, from which a number of weapons might be distributed on an emergency, by the hand of some chief, to a small band of natives met together, on the alarm of common danger. Assemblages of these weapons have been found in the parishes of Walls, of Delting, and in the island of Unst. The larger steinbarte may have been used both as an offensive and defensive weapon, either by throwing it from the hand, or striking with it, when the combatants came to close quarters; and the smaller steinbarte, it is probable, was formerly used for domestic purposes, and held a similar place in the eighth or ninth century which a knife does in the nineteenth. That they are a very ancient instrument is without doubt; for even tradition itself is silent, both as to the time when and the people by whom they were used.” Mr Bryden combats Dr Hibbert's opinion that these flat knives were inserted into wooden handles and used, either as warlike weapons, or as halberts. With regard to the classification of the flat Shetland knives-the double-edged steinbartes of Dr Hibbert and Mr Bryden-it seems to me that they may be appropriately divided into discoidal and semilunar. Although there is no typical example of the latter among the Esheness group, we shall immediately see that the characteristics of many specimens in the national collection, and elsewhere, justify the adoption of some such classification. In using a knife showing a sharp margin all round, one part of it must he held in the hand, and in some instances I have observed a corresponding blunt portion. Other writers have recorded finger depressions on one of the surfaces, to give a better hold of the implement. But the semilunar knife is clearly defined by having an elongated shape, with one of the long sides thick and blunt, while the other is ground down for cutting purposes. A Shetland knife in the possession of Sir John Evans is thus described : "I have a specimen, 44 inches long and 34 inches wide at the base, formed of porphyritic greenstone, and found at Hillswick, in Shetland, which was given me by Mr J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S. Its cutting edge may be described as forming nearly half of a pointed ellipse, of which the thick side for holding forms the conjugate diameter. This side is rounded and curved slightly inwards; one of the angles between this base and the elliptical edge is rounded, and a portion of the edge is also left thick and rounded, so that when the base is applied to the palm of the hand the lower part of the forefinger may rest upon it. When thus held it forms a cutting tool not unlike a leather-cutter's knife." (Ancient Stone Implements, p. 308.) Of twenty-two specimens recorded in the Catalogue of the National Museum, and now exhibited there, four oblong specimens, made of darkcoloured porphyry, were found together in a bog in the island of Uyea, Unst (Proc. S. A. Scot., vol. xix. p. 332). One, made of porphyry, was found in each of the following localities, viz. Hillswick, Busta, Fyal Bank (Unst), and Northmavine; twelve of porphyry and one of serpentine are without any assigned locality; and one of hornblende rock, from Houland, Walls, has the peculiarity of being polished and thinned to an edge from the back. In other words, it is a semilunar tool measuring 7 by 33 inches. On ransacking the volumes of the Proceedings of the Society since 1892, the date of the publication of the Catalogue, I find nine specimens (exclusive of the Modesty hoard) recorded among the purchases for the Museum. These are all stated to be made of porphyritic rock; one is from Unst, and the other eight from Northmavine. The Unst specimen measures 47 by 24 inches, and differs from the normal type inasmuch as it is brought to a sharp edge only on one of the two longer sides. Among the eight from Northmavine, one is differentiated from the others by having the form of a segment of a circle, almost crescentic in appearance, like the well-known flint knives or saws of Scandinavia. It is 7 inches in length and 2 in its greatest breadth. We now come to the consideration of one of the most important discoveries of the kind hitherto made in Shetland, viz. a hoard of nine stone axes of the ordinary types of the Stone Age, and about fourteen. specimens, whole or fragmentary, of the knives now under review. The circumstances in which this assortment of objects was found are thus briefly described by Mr George Kinghorn : "When spending my holidays in Shetland, and residing at the house of Mr Laurence Laurenson at Modesty, about four miles north of Bridge of Walls post-office, I was shown three stone axes and three large, oval, and polished stone knives found by his boys in a grassy knoll in front of his house. The knoll is about 20 yards long and 10 yards broad. On the east and west it slopes gently and on the south abruptly, the ground being broken when the axes were found. "The strata are composed of— (1) Grass, turf, and sandy peat, about 8 inches. (3) Decomposed charred wood, about 4 or 5 inches. "The axes were found in the charred wood layer. "About eighty or ninety years ago, previous to his house being built, a bank of peat, about 4 feet thick, had been removed from the site of the house and the knoll, and this may account for the shallow depth at which the relics were found." (Proc. S. A. Scot., vol. xxix. pp. 7 and 49; xxx. p. 39.) On making further search in the knoll, three vessels or urns of steatitic clay, some more stone implements, and a pair of saddle-quern stones were found. Fragments of the so-called urns show that the pottery was about half an inch thick, and made of very coarse materials mixed with small stones and what looks like the stalks of withered grass. The whole of the Modesty relics, consisting of nine polished stone axes of diorite, porphyrite, or hornblende, and fourteen oval knives of differently coloured porphyrites, are now preserved in the National Museum. Also, from the same place are two masses of heavy clay, apparently moulded or kneaded by hand, and fragments of charred faggots of branches or roots, from 1 to 1 inch in diameter. With regard to this find attention. there are a few points which claim (1) The urns would seem to presuppose burial, but not necessarily, as the vessels might have been used for domestic purposes. Hence, I would provisionally suggest an alternative hypothesis, viz. that the green knoll was the site of a wooden habitation which had been destroyed by fire, thus accounting for the amount of peat-ashes and charcoal as the embers of the fallen roof, which originally consisted of rafters and turf. This hypothesis cannot be summarily set aside on the ground that wood no longer grows in Shetland, because at the bottom of many peatbogs in that locality remains of timbers several inches in diameter are to be found. Now, in the case of the Modesty habitation, the purport of the evidence goes to show that the remains belonged to a period anterior to the growth of peat in that locality; so that brushwood, or even trees, sufficiently large to be utilised for the construction of huts, might have been then growing in this part of Shetland. That forests, with trees probably of no great size, formerly grew in Shetland there can be no doubt. Wandering one day over a peat-moss near the town of Lerwick, I saw heaps of decayed bogwood, with stems and roots up to 5 or 6 inches in diameter, which had been collected by the peat-cutters and left there to dry. Mr George Low (Tour, p. 146), while passing through the parish of Delting On his way to the island of Yell, writes thus "as proof of trees having been here at some remote period": moss. “Observed near the kirk of Scalsta, in the bank where the sea had wore away the position, earth, a continued stratum of large pieces of wood, in a horizontal a few inches above the hard gravel, covered with about 10 feet of This stratum is continued as far as I could search the whole length of this worn bank, and probably round the bay; it consists of pieces from 8 inches to an inch diameter, roots, stocks, and in a word, all parts of a tree; Hazle and Aquatick woods, but so much rotten that no part can be In many places of Orkney and Shetland the peat-diggers often find seems moved. great heaps even of the leaves of trees." The p. 103), Same author, in his description of the island of Foula (ibid. makes the following remarks:— They have many traditions of there having once been wood in their island ; they show us a valley, now a moss, which they affirm was covered with it, and of this day, in cutting peats often find large pieces of both trunks and branches Tradition says the Lewis-men in their plundering parties thro' the trees. isles landed here, and after pillaging Foula burnt the wood, lest it should be a shelter to the natives in future times." (2) All the knives in the Modesty group, though nowhere thicker than half an inch, have the appearance of being thicker and coarser than their analogues elsewhere, and also the peculiarity of thinning gently from the back towards the cutting edge- thus coming under the category of semilunar tools. Moreover, the cutting edge has the further peculiarity of being retouched by chipping on one face, with the exof one which is chipped on both sides. This chipping process is probably the same feature which attracted Low's attention when he describes one of his specimens with "edges canelled on both sides like a ception |