Very striking examples of interlaced ornament are met with on the ancient sculptured stones and crosses so plentifully scattered over our islands. They have been of late brought into prominent notice by three invaluable publications which graphically represent and accurately describe these interesting relics of ancient art as they are now found in Scotland[2], Ireland[3] and the Isle of Man[4]. It is to be regretted that those of England and Wales—though many of them have been separately engraved—have not yet been collected in a well-edited volume, since a careful comparison of their details would prove an immense assistance to antiquaries, bringing before them a new and delightful chapter, richly full of pre-historic suggestions. My remarks are confined to sculptured stones only, though the subject would be greatly elucidated and my argument enforced by references to manuscripts and metal ornamentation. This ground, however, is so well occupied by gentlemen who have made palæography and metallic art their peculiar study that I decline intruding upon it, even had it been possible to treat it satisfactorily within the limits of this paper. The aborigines of this or any other country of corresponding climate, after discovering some natural cave, or making for themselves a rude hut, would probably take their next step in constructive art by attempting to form such utensils as might contain, and enable them to preserve, the fruits and seeds necessary for food. Assuming that they were then unprovided with even the rudest tools,—for we refer to a time before our far-off ancestors knew the use of bronze or iron,—they would form these utensils by twisting together the long, pliant osiers with which the land abounded, and of which, by the unaided action of the fingers, they could form baskets excellently adapted for the required purpose. No other branch of art is even now so independent of tools, and none has been so universally diffused or so long and uninterruptedly practised as basket making. It is the humble parent of all textile art, the most elaborate tissues produced by the loom or the needle being but progressive developements proceeding from the rude wattle-work of unclothed savages. Basket making is the first natural step in the path of civilization. To this day the earliest effort of infantile ingenuity among the rural population is directed to making (as it were by intuitive instinct) personal ornaments of plaited rushes, and that, too, in patterns, some of which are identical with the devices engraved by our pre-historic ancestors on their old sculptured stones.