The name of Axe is, with sufficient appropriateness, applied to the double-edged stone implements, and to those of a wedge-shape which have the aperture for inserting the handle near the broad end, whereas other examples perforated sufficiently near the centre to admit of the free use of both ends are with equal propriety styled hammers. They are frequently finished with great neatness and art; not made, like the hatchet, of flint, but of a variety of kinds of stone, from the gray granite, of which the largest are generally made, to trap and even sandstone. Several examples have been discovered in an unfinished state, furnishing curious illustration of the laborious process of manufacture. One large one in particular in the Scottish Museum was found in digging the Caledonian Canal. It is made of gray granite, very symmetrically and beautifully formed, and with the hole partially bored on both sides. This was probably effected with water and sand by the tedious process of turning round a smaller stone until the perforation was at length completed. Tried therefore by the standard of value of the Stone Period, the hammer was perhaps a more costly deposit in the tomb of some favourite chief than the golden armillæ of later times. The Danish antiquaries are familiar with examples of unfinished stone implements, and also with a still more curious class, consisting of broken hammers and otherwise mutilated instruments, which have been perforated with another hole or ground to a new edge, affording striking evidence of the value of such implements to their primitive owners. The example figured here, partaking of the characteristics both of the hammer and axe, was dug up on the farm of Dell, in the parish of Abernethy, and is engraved from a sketch by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. It measures eight inches in length, and was found at a depth of about five feet from the surface, in a soil consisting of two feet of mould lying above peat moss. [Illustration]