In this place, where ancient superstitious practices still linger, the remembrance of its founder and his imputed miracles would naturally be longest retained, and any relics appertaining to him preserved with pertinacious care. None such can now be found; but it is recorded that about or before the year 1630, a certain Lord Dillon visited the island, accompanied by a government surveyor, and they gave a detailed description of the place, which was published by the then Bishop of the Diocese. In their report it is stated that “at the east end of the church there is a heap of stones, on which there is _a cross made of interwoven twigs_; this is known by the name of St. Patrick’s Altar, on which there do lie three pieces of a bell, which they say St. Patrick used to carry in his hand,” &c.[25] This is the only record I have met with of any actual cross of twigs or basket-work. It was probably the last of innumerable crosses of the same kind, and was found in the place where, of all others, the latest example was likely to be met with. Doubtless it was a many times repeated copy of some ancient cross attributed originally to the hands of the patron saint of Ireland.[26] The devices sculptured on a majority of the Scottish and Manx monoliths must have been executed before the artists possessed such skill or such tools as would enable them to cut the outline of the stone itself to any required form; they do not appear at that time to have _set up_ crosses, but they engraved representations of that symbol on the surface of huge stones many of which were already fixed in an erect position and most probably had been for a long series of years employed in the services of an earlier religion. Upon such stones they imitated the ornamentation of wicker-work by innumerable reiterated blows of their small celts of flint, bronze, or iron, working out the design in low relief, and showing one half of the round, or as much only of the osier wands as could be seen when plaited together. It is only in the later examples that the outline of the stone assumes the form of the cross; and this change is accompanied by a considerable alteration in the ornamental details, the interlacings become less elegant but more complicated, and terminate in the heads, tails, and limbs of various animals, often grotesque in expression; or, the wands burst into buds and leaves, or give place entirely to sculptured representations of men and animals of the rudest execution. It is a curious proof of the earlier use of the interwoven ornamentation that it may be found in elegantly arranged and highly-finished devices on the same stones with representations of the human figure so rudely carved as to appear to be the work of mere children.