the finder of any relics in ancient coins, or in the precious metals, is
now entitled by law, on delivering them up to the Crown for our National
Museum, to claim "the full intrinsic value" of them from the Sheriff of
the district in which they chance to be discovered--a most just and
proper enactment, through the aid of which many such relics will no
doubt be henceforth properly preserved.

But the results of digging to which I have referred are, as I have
already said, the results merely of accidental digging. From a
systematised application of the same means of discovery, in fit and
proper localities, with or without previous ground-probing, Archaeology
is certainly entitled to expect most valuable consequences. The spade
and pickaxe are become as indispensable aids in some forms of
archaeological, as the hammer is in some forms of geological research.
The great antiquarian treasures garnered up in our sepulchral barrows
and olden kistvaen cemeteries, are only to be recovered to antiquarian
science by digging, and by digging, too, of the most careful and
methodised kind. For in such excavations it is a matter of moment to
note accurately every possible separate fact as to the position, state,
etc., of all the objects exposed; as well as to search for, handle, and
gather these objects most carefully. In excavating, some years ago, a
large barrow in the Phoenix Park at Dublin, two entire skeletons were
discovered within the chamber of the stone cromlech which formed the
centre of the sepulchral mound. A flint knife, a flint arrow-head, and a
small fibula of bone were found among the rubbish, along with some
cinerary urns; but no bronze or other metallic implements. The human
beings buried there had lived in the so-called Stone Period of the
Danish archaeologists. Some hard bodies were observed immediately below
the head of one of the skeletons, and by very cautious and careful
picking away of the surrounding earth, there was traced around the neck
of each a complete necklace formed of the small sea-shells of the
Nerita, with a perforation in each shell to admit of a string composed
of vegetable fibres being passed through them. Without due vigilance how
readily might these interesting relics have been overlooked!

The spade and mattock, however, have subserved, and will subserve, other
important archaeological purposes besides the opening of ancient
cemeteries. They will probably enable us yet to solve to some extent t