much difficulty, but it is extremely hard, and difficult to cut against the grain. It will readily be seen, from this short description of the building materials, that they must necessarily exercise great influence on the character of the buildings, more especially in early times, before the use of machinery, and when the tools were very inefficient.
In the districts where stone is found in large masses, so that abundance of slabs may be obtained of ten or twelve feet long, or even more, by one or two feet thick, and varying in width from one foot to three or four, it is perfectly natural that the buildings should have been erected of what is called Cyclopean masonry; for such masses were easily ranged in walls, and required no mortar. As it was difficult to obtain cut stone for the quoins or corners, it was more convenient to build a tower round than square; just as in Norfolk, Suffolk, and other chalk countries—where the usual building material was flint, and there was a scarcity of stone for corners—the towers were also built round. The great abundance of stone has also had another remarkable effect in Ireland, or at leass in many parts of it; for, stone fit for ordinary building purposes being found everywhere on the surface of the ground, and having only to be collected and used as wanted, it does not pay to pull down old walls for the materials, as is done in other countries; and when stone is to be had upon the spot people will not carry it half a mile. But, as wood was not equally abundant and was useful for fuel, every scrap of wood or thatch has commonly been burnt, and nothing but the stone walls left standing. The consequence of this is, that the surface of Ireland is covered with ruins of old buildings of all ages, from the cairns to the cabins deserted fifty years ago or only yesterday. Hundreds of cabins, abandoned in consequence of the great famine, are standing just as they were left, so far at least as regards the stone walls and chimneys; the wood and thatch have all been burnt, but it has not been worth any one's while to pull down the bare walls. This circumstance gives Ireland a very desolate appearance to strangers, but it is not in reality a proof of extreme poverty, as is often at first sight supposed.
The nature of the material also influenced the fashion and the details of the buildings in many other ways. The primitive houses were vaulted with a sort of rude dome formed by the overlapping of the ends of large stones, as in the Pyramids of Egypt; and the fashion of vaulting with rough stones, though gradually becoming less rude, was continued to a late period. The houses popularly attributed to the saints of the fifth and sixth centuries have vaults of a more advanced construction, and bearing considerable resemblance to those of the Pembroke-
