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210 THE SCANDINAVIANS, AND
with the stratum of leaves and portions of trees already
mentioned, I had ten specimens of trees which had been
dug up in different parts of Castle-street excavation, submitted
for the inspection of Professor Allman. Dr. All man
found the fibre of one of these specimens so much injured
by lying in the wet bog or otherwise, that the species of
tree to which it belonged could not be determined ;
but he
ascertained that three of the others were willow and five
hazel this, and the number of hazel-nuts found, supplying
a hazel-wood
presumptive evidence that at a remote period
grew on this hill, and that Harris, or rather the Irish
authority on which he relied, was probably correct in
stating that " The Brow of the Hazelwood " was a name
for the ridge of the hill on which Dublin was built.
But as regards the name of the city itself, although these
excavations furnished incontrovertible evidence that Stani-
hurst and others had correctly stated that Dublin is built
on a marshy soil, where some security is necessary to the
foundations of modern houses ;
it did not follow that they
were equally correct in asserting that the Irish name " Ath
Cliath "
originated from the use of hurdles in building the
city.
" "
Mistakes as to Ath Cliath is a name of high antiquity. We find it
Ath-ciiatif. m connexion with transactions anterior to the fifth and
sixth centuries, and we are aware that prior to that period
the dwellings of the natives were almost universally con-
structed of timber, or of timber and wickerwork, plastered
with clay. 1 As such habitations did not require the firm
'
["The poorer Irish who follow custom; for such are the dwellings
'creaghting,' or running up and of the very lords amongst them."
down the country after their herds I-'ynes Moryson, p. 164, London,
of cattle, dwell in booths made of folio 1617. The following descriphurdles
or boughs covered with tion was written in 1644.' "The
long strips of green turf instead of towns are built in the Enirlis-li
canvas, run up in a few minutes, fashion ; but the houses in the
and even the higher classes in Ulster, country are in this manner: two
who, some of them, follow the same stakesare fixed in the ground, across