EARLY MAN flanges by the side. It is an excellent specimen, now in the museum at Warrington. A second special form is in the museum at St. Helens, where it was found about 1 2 ft. from the surface near the corner of Corporation Street and Hall Street in 1879. It is about 9 in. long, with a depth increasing from 2 J in. at the hole to 3J in. at the edge and 2j in. at the head. Its special features are the lateral flanges on opposite sides of the hole, which increase its breadth from 3 in. to 3I in. over all. The photograph of Plate III. No. 5 shows this feature, which is not common. A hammer of similar form seems to have been found at Throstle Nest, near Manchester, having a length of 12 in., but there is some obscurity about the record : ^ the description indicates a large double hammer, with side flanges as before. Another very unusual form shown in fig. 10 is described as found near Lancaster.' It is of massive ap- pearance, 9 in. long and 3 in. wide, with a depth of 3 in. at the cutting edge and 2| in. at the butt. It seems to have one side almost flat, while the other inclines suddenly just beyond the hole towards the edge, giving the appearance of an angle in the side and a general lack of symmetry. The edge is chipped, and the head curved and somewhat rounded. Two excellent examples of the small smooth stone axe- hammers of the Bronze Age are recorded, the one from Winwick, now in the museum at Warrington, the other from Claughton, where it re- mains in the Hall, The former was found in an urn which lay ' in some soft black stuff inside a tumulus ' at Middleton, Winwick. With it was associated a bronze dagger, described on page 235 (Plate IV. No. 7). In length it measures 4| in. by i ^ in width. Its depth varies from i in. to 2 in. over the outcurved edge, and 1 1 in. across the flanges of the head, which are shown in the photograph of Plate II. No. 5. The hammer face itself is about | in. across, and the weight of the implement about 9 oz."* The second example, from near Claughton Hall, is said to have been found in 'cutting through a tumulus in 1882, in a wooden cist, together with an iron axe, spear-head, sword, and hammer. There must, however, be an error in this account, and as an urn containing burnt bones was found in the same tumulus with this Saxon and Danish interment, it seems probable that the objects belonging to different burials, primary and secondary in the barrow, became mixed during the 27 years that elapsed between their discovery and Fig. 10. — Axe-hammer found near Lancaster. 1:3. 1 See a sketch hung in the Salford Museum. 8 Arch. Journ. i860, xvi. 295, plate 25. 225 2 Weld MSS. 29
