Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 9/5 



of undoubted character ; James Jolly is a journeyman mason, a very intelligent man, and a person 

 upon whose integrity ample reliance can be placed ; and Mr. Lindsay, with whom I have been ac- 

 quainted through life, and who has now been with me for thirteen years continuously, is a man of 

 the strictest probity. I am fully satisfied, therefore, that we have got a careful and correct account 

 of every thing found in the tower. James Jolly has now dug eight feet below the door sill, that is, 

 he is about one foot five inches below the external ground line and hewn basement or plinth of the 

 tower, and has come to where the hewn work ceases, and rude undressed stones form the building. 

 At this depth we stop until we hear from you. We have not reached the native rock on which the 

 tower is built ; but we have now reached the clay or till and sand work, which appears to have been 

 disturbed, as [if] it were what had been dug out for the foundation and thrown into the centre 

 of the tower. Until this depth we have dug through a fine mould composed of decayed wood and 

 other vegetable matter, mixed up with a little animal matter. 



" We found a quantity of peats, and a good deal of dross of peats, or refuse of moss, and we also 

 found great varieties of bones, principally sheep bones, especially jaw bones of sheep, some bones of 

 oxen, and a few human bones, these last being vertebra?, pieces of skulls, toes and bits of jaw-bones. 

 These bones were found at all depths, but we found no bones of any size. We have likewise got 

 a quantity of slates, a hewn stone for the top of a lancet-shaped arch, part of the sill of a window 

 with the base of a mulliou traced on it, some basement stones, and others of baser workmanship ; 

 oyster shells, buckies or sea-shells, nails, buttons, bits of copper and verdigris, two small lumps of 

 bell metal, several little bits of stained glass, and part of an elf arrow have also been found at dif- 

 ferent depths ; and yesterday we found the remains of a key and some charred wood. But what 

 will most please your pagan friends is the fact, that since we began we have each day found various 

 pieces of URNS or jars. None of the pieces although put together form a complete urn ; but I think 

 amongst the pieces I can trace out three or four distinct vessels. One appears to have been of 

 glazed earthen ware, and to have had little handles as thus ; ^^^^^. while round the inner 



ledge there are small round indentations : about a third of \v J this vessel remains, as 



marked by the dotted lines ; the other two vessels are of clay, regularly baked, ap- 



parently, but not glazed, and one is slightly ornamented round the edge thus ^K^C*^ the indenta- 

 tions being evidently made by alternately pressing the thumb and fore- ^0=^ finger hori- 

 zontal, and the thumb perpendicular, in the wet clay. 



" Now, how came all these things there ? I am afraid you will set me down, not for a pagan, 

 but for a veritable Heathen when I say, that my opinion is, the slates, glass, wood, and iron had 

 been tossed in at what in Scotland is called the Reformation, when our Scotch Apostle, John Knox, 

 drove your Roman Catholic Apostles from what he termed their rookeries ; that the bones and 

 great part of the animal and vegetable matter had been carried to the top of the tower by the rooks 

 and jackdaws (kaies of Scotland) for building their nests and feeding their young, and had tumbled 

 from thence to the bottom of the tower ; that the peats and the rest of the stuff had been thrown 

 at various times into the bottom of the tower as a general receptacle for all refuse ; and that the frag- 

 ments of URNS or jars, are just the remains of culinary articles belonging to the different kirk officers. 



" After this declaration can I expect to hear from you again, advising me what further we 



