Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from the _Archæological Journal_.[879] This was found in company with two others at Burns, near Ambleside, Westmorland; and another, almost precisely similar in size and form, was found at Percy’s Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that district. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked, |236| having somewhat acorn-shaped ends, was found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Old Geir,[880] Anglesea. Others from Anglesea,[881] one of them ornamented, have been figured. They were originally regarded as hammer-stones, but such as I have examined are made of a softer stone than those usually employed for hammers, and they are not battered or worn at the ends. It is, therefore, probable that they were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they are well adapted, the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around it from wear by friction. They seem also usually to occur in the neighbourhood either of lakes, rivers, or the sea. A water-worn nodule of sandstone, 5 inches long, with a deep groove round it, and described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was found in Aberdeenshire,[882] and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and I have one of soft grit, and about the same length, given me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S., and found by him near Nantlle, Carnarvonshire. [Illustration: Fig. 159.—Ambleside. 1∕2] Many of these sink-stones are probably of no great antiquity. With two transverse grooves, they are still in use in Shetland.[883] The Fishing Indians of Vancouver’s Island[884] go out trolling for salmon in a fast canoe, towing behind them a long line made of tough seaweed, to which is attached, by slips of deer hide, an oval piece of granite perfectly smooth, and the size and shape of a goose’s egg. It acts as a sinker, and is said to spin the bait. A net-sinker, formed of a pebble slightly notched or grooved, is among the antiquities from |237| Lake Erie, engraved by Schoolcraft.[885] Others have been found in the State of New York.[886] See C. Rau’s “Prehistoric Fishing.”[887] Sink-stones are by no means rare in Ireland, and continue in use to the present day. One of the same class as Fig. 159, but grooved round the long axis of the pebble, is engraved by Sir W. Wilde.[888] Similar stones occur in Denmark, and were regarded by Worsaae[889] as sink-stones, though some of them, to judge from the wear at the ends, and the hardness of the material, were used as hammers. I have seen, in Sweden, the leg bones of animals used as weights for sinking nets.