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known that a vast number has been totally destroyed by the 

 peasantry, there is reason to believe that the collection 

 could not have been originally much less than double that 

 number. They are all formed of granite holders, except the 

 covering stone and another of the Cromlech in the great 

 cairn, which are of lime stone. 



In all the circles, which have been either wholly or in 

 part destroyed, human bones, earthen urns, &c. have been 

 invariably found; and one circular enclosure, outside the 

 group, and of far greater extent than any of the others, but 

 evidently of cotemporaneous construction, is filled with 

 bones of men and animals. 



Mr. Petrie stated, that this is the largest collection of 

 monuments of the kind in the British islands, and probably, 

 with the exception of the monuments at Carnach in Brittany, 

 the most remarkable in the world. 



From the design observable in their arrangement and 

 uniformity of construction, he considers them all of cotem- 

 poraneous age ; and from the human remains found in all 

 of them, he concludes that they are wholly of sepulchral 

 origin, and erected as monuments to men of various degrees 

 of rank slain in a battle, the great central cairn being the 

 sepulchre of the chief, and the great enclosure outside the 

 group, the burial place of the inferior class. Such monu- 

 ments, he stated, are found on all the battle fields recorded 

 in Irish history, as the scenes of contest between the Belgian 

 or Firvolg and the Tuatha de Danann colonies, and he con- 

 siders these monuments to be the tombs of the Belgians, 

 who, after their defeat in the battle of the Southern Moy- 

 Turey, had retreated to Cuil-Iorra, and were there again 

 defeated, and their king, Eochy, slain in crossing the strand 

 of Ballysadare Bay, on which a cairn, rising above high 

 water, still marks the spot on which he fell. 



As monuments of this class are found not only in most 

 countries of Europe, but also in the East, Mr. Petrie thinks 



