PLATE VIII. FIG. 1. I. Is the bitt and headftall of a bridle, both of brafs; it was found in the county of Rofcommon, and is now in the College mufeum. The bitt is of extraordinary neat and curious workmanship: a celebrated artist of Dublin, affured me, that it was impoffible to make a better joint, at this day, than that of the center of the bitt. The curb and chains were of gold, but were fecreted by the peasant that found it. On the top of the headstall, an elegant pillar of brafs is erected, to which a plume of feathers was faftened. Fig. 2. Is a brafs fpur neatly wrought; in poffeflion of the Rev. Mr. Archdall. Fig. 3. A furprizing large fpur of iron, in the College museum. Fig. 4. A brafs fpur of the College museum, the shape is fingular, and by experiment, this fpur must have been worn low on the heel, in the floping pofition here reprefented, the circular part being chamfered off within-fide, for that purpose. PLATE Tuagh Snaighte-Chip Axes. PLATE IX. REPRESENTS feveral tools of brass found in our bogs, called by the antient Irish Tuagh-fnaighte, or Chip Axes, from the Chaldee tuach to ftrike, whence the Arabic Tufh, an Axe. Multitudes of these instruments are daily dug up in Ireland. In this plate and the next, I have given the drawings of every species I could collect. Some are in the College museum, but the greatest collection is in the poffeffion of the Rev. Mr. Archdall. Some were ufed with handles, part of the wood adhering still to the bottoms of the fockets; and thefe had loops for the convenience of taking them off readily to be ground. Thefe are all drawn of the fize of the originals. Fig. 1. Has a fquare focket; this resembles fig. 2. taken from a drawing in the chief d'Ouvre d'un inconu; some peasants digging in Normandy, found as many of thofe in one fpot, as loaded a horfe. Monf. Dela Roque, the Antiquary, was pre I 2 fent, fent, he thinks they were Roman; for, fays he, in his letter to Mr. Hearne," you have justly obferved these are neither arrow heads, or British axes, or the heads of Roman Catapults; they are neither Gaulish, Saxon or Danish, nor yet facrificing hatchets; and you justly conclude, that although thefe inftruments were not military arms, they were carried by the Roman foldiers for the exprefs purposes of afhlering and chiffeling the ftones, with which they faced the intrenchments of their camp." Fig. 5, and 8. Are gouges or femi-circular chiffels; the fmall one has no loop, nor has the fmall flat chiffel; thefe were for flight work, and had fufficient holding on a wooden handle. Montfaucon, properly claffes all thefe with implements used in in architecture. With fubmiflion to Mon. Dela Roque, Mr. Hearne and Dr. Plot, thefe inftruments are not Roman; they are neither Gaulifh, Saxon or Danish, nor British or Welsh; but the manufacture of an antient people that poffeffed thefe iflands and the Continent, long before the Romans were a nation, or the Welsh arrived in Britain. For, as the ingenious Dr. Haviland obferves, * the migration of the Gomerites, (the ancestors of the Welsh) into Europe, is not related as planting colonies, and furnishing them with inhabitants, but as a warlike expedition, as an invafion and irruption. They are reprefented as conquerors, fubduing and driving the former inhabitants out of their poffeffions, or where there was room enough, incorporating with them; and, * Differt. on the peopling of Britain. Archæol. V, 1. as |