Mr Wood's Description of the contents of' a Tumulus. 217 



about a foot. It measured eighty-five feet across at the base, 

 and not much above six feet in height at the highest part, which 

 was a Httle removed from the centre, in a northwest direction. 

 It was covered with short grass. One or two more tumuli are 

 in the immediate vicinity. The ground around is mostly bar- 

 ren moor-land. 



The cottars in the neighbourhood have, for four or five 

 years past, been occasionally removing earth and stones from 

 the edge of the tumulus, — the earth for improving their little 

 patches of land, — the stones for building and repairing hill 

 dikes. They have never seen any regular building till this 

 summer ; nor have they found any thing but what they were in 

 search of — earth and stones. An old man, indeed, some months 

 ago, found, a few feet from the edge of the tumulus, a ring of 

 black earthenware, large enough to go round hisw rist ; it was 

 finely polished and very hard, according to his account; he 

 broke it to ascertain its composition, and has since lost it. The 

 same man also describes a vennel or drain running at right an- 

 gles with the drain we discovered ; it was on the south-east of 

 the tumulus. 



The tumulus, I have already hinted, was formed of stones 

 and earth. The stones were mostly rounded stones from the 

 sea^shore, and seemed all to have been subjected to the action of 

 fire ; the earth was black, and in many places mixed with ashes. 

 After removing many cart-loads of stones and earth, we came 

 to the building, a ground plan of which I have attempted, 

 (PI. III. Fig. 1.), and which I shall now describe as accurate- 

 ly as I can. ) 



The principal part of the building consisted of one square 

 apartment, in one end of which there was a fire-place R ; on the 

 right hand side it communicated with a small cell ; a drain a a 

 commenced nearly at the fire place, and ran in a south-east di- 

 rection towards the loch ; at the outer extremity of the drain h b 

 was another small cell. 



The dimensions of the principal apartments may be judged 

 of from the plan. The height of the walls we could not ascertain ; 

 they were, when we examined them, about three feet high, and did 

 not appear ever to have been much higher : they were two feet 

 thick, composed of roughly dressed stones, cemented Avith clav ; 



