528 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



not dabbled in politics, the island would have enjoyed greater peace during the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than it actually did. But as the Seaforths 

 were, except during the " Forty-Five," ardent Royalists and Jacobites, Lewis 

 received the attentions of both Cromwell and the Hanoverians; the former caused 

 several forts to be built there. Mr. Mackenzie provides an interesting chapter 

 on the connection between Lewis and the Jacobites. 



The three chapters dealing with the prehistoric remains in Lewis will be of 

 great interest to archaeologists. The chief of these is a large group of "Druidical " 

 stones at Callernish. These huge megaliths are a monument of the Stone Age, 

 and the author gives an interesting account of their shape and form of arrange- 

 ment, as well as a list and a criticism of the various conjectures which have been 

 made on the subject of their meaning and use. 



Next in antiquarian interest come the "brochs," or forts, of which Dun 

 Carloway is the chief. The author favours the idea that these brochs were built 

 by the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Lewis, and denies that the builders were Celts 

 or Norsemen. He believes that these pre-Celtic builders were the Firbolgs or 

 " Iberians," a race whose type may still be seen in Lewis, as well as in other parts 

 of the British Isles. 



The last, but by no means the least interesting, of the prehistoric relics of 

 Lewis is the "Isle of Pigmies," near the Butt of Lewis. On this isle there is a 

 small " kirk." Inside the " kirk " the author found several bones, not, indeed, 

 those of pigmies, but of mammals and birds. Yet he is far from believing that 

 the pigmy tradition is entirely founded on mythology. 



