In a paper[510] on a neolithic flint weapon in a wooden haft, Mr. C. Dawson has given an account of a discovery made by Mr. Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd of East Dean, near Eastbourne, of a flint hatchet at Mitchdean. It was lying in its wooden haft which was perfectly carbonized, but Mr. Blackmore made a |154| drawing of it, apparently from memory. He describes the blade, which seems to have been unground, as lying in a horizontal groove cut in one side of the shaft, which was 2 feet 6 inches long. At one end of the shaft were two projections supposed to serve for holding the ligatures by which the blade was attached, and nearer the hand were a number of grooves running round the haft. Neither the description nor the drawings of this and other objects found with it are such as to inspire complete confidence. About 1822, in sinking a well at Ferry Harty, Isle of Sheppey,[511] there were found, according to newspaper reports, the remains of a hut, two skeletons, and “flints and hard stones, apparently intended for axes and cutting implements, with handles of wood quite complete and in good preservation.” Nothing farther seems to be known of this discovery. At Ervie,[512] near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, a celt of indurated clay-stone in form like Fig. 77 (8 inches) was found, which shows a band of dark colour about 1 1∕2 inch wide and about 2 inches from the butt-end, crossing it at an angle of about 20°. This band probably shows the position of the haft in which the blade was fixed. Another celt from Glenshee, Forfarshire, likewise in the Edinburgh Museum, shows a fainter mark of the kind. On a third from Dolphinton,[513] Lanarkshire, the mark is very distinct and at a right angle to the axis of the blade. Montelius[514] mentions a Swedish specimen, and A. de Mortillet[515] a French one of flint similarly marked. [Illustration: Fig. 93.—Monaghan.] In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy[516] is a drawing of a celt in its handle (which is apparently of pine) found in the county of Monaghan. This handle was 13 1∕2 inches long, and more clumsy at the socketed end than that from Solway Moss. The woodcut given by Sir W. Wilde is here, by permission, reproduced as Fig. 93. Another nearly similar specimen was discovered near |155| Cookstown,[517] in the county of Tyrone. What may be the haft of a stone hatchet was found in another Irish crannog.[518] Another is in the collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S. Some of the hatchets from the Swiss Lake-dwellings were hafted in a similar manner. In one such haft, formed of ash, from Robenhausen,[519] the blade is inclined towards the hand; in another, also of ash, the blade is at right angles to the shaft.[520] Some of these club-like hafts resemble in character those in use for iron blades in Southern and Central Africa.[521] The copper or bronze axes of the Mexicans[522] were hafted in the same manner.