TtJiniLI OF THE NORTH DISTRICT. 237 



East which are at a right angle to the others are four paces 

 apart. In the easternmost barrow, A, I found no remains. 

 B, situated at nine paces irom a, five feet in height and 

 thirty-six in circumference, with a trench round it, contained 

 only ashes ; o, a much smaller barrow, twenty-one paces west 

 of the last, is covered with fir trees. In this I sank a shaft, 

 and at the depth of three feet came upon some small thin sand 

 stones, such as are obtainable from the neighbourhood. The 

 largest of these covered -a cist sunk in the native sand, which 

 contained an inverted urn wedged round with flints. It 

 measured about a foot in height, but was much injured by 

 the roots of the trees. 



About a foot and a half south of this deposit, and one foot 

 from the top, I found another small um unprotected, which 

 measured about six inches in height and the same in diameter, 

 and was of the coarsest kind of manufacture without any 

 pattern. 



These tumuli occupy a limited space of about three hundred 

 yards in diameter, which may be denominated a plateau, 

 being the flat top of an irregularly shaped knoU. 



'What could have been the intention of those who raised 

 them? is a question to which there appears to be but one 

 answer, namely, that they are the memorials of only one 

 funeral solemnity. The barrow o was the sepulchral mound, 

 B and A perhaps funeral piles, and six score lesser mounds, 

 stretching away towards the South-East and South-West, 

 were imdoubtedly fires placed with great care at regular in- 

 tervals, agreeably to the dictation of some funeral rite. And 

 the ashes, when the flames had died away, or been quenched by 

 some sacred fluid, were covered with earth, to be a record to 

 future ages of the grand and important, perhaps, sacred event 

 which had been enacted there. 



I think this conclusion a fair one, although I can refer to 

 no record of similar remains which might oorroborute it. Sir 



