found on the Sand Hills o/'Culbin. 215 



that a manufactory of those rude aboriginal weapons may have 

 once existed there. A man, who accidentally lost his gun flint, 

 went to the spot in question to look for a flint to replace it ; 

 and in his search he discovered the bronze relic under con- 

 sideration. He carried it to a shopkeeper in Forres, to whom 

 he sold it for half-a-crown ; and Lady Gumming of Altyre, 

 who purchased it from the shopkeeper at a much higher price, 

 and in whose possession it now is, was so kind as to permit 

 me to take a sketch of it. 



The bronze relic stands 3J inches high, and is 3J inches 

 in diameter, and its diameter xvithin is 2 J inches. Its weight 

 in air is 2 pounds 9J ounces avoirdupois. It is of bronze ; 

 but the metal is of the very finest and richest Corinthian sort. 

 I had not by me instruments for ascertaining accurately its 

 specific gravity ; but I did so with all the correctness I could 

 command, and the result was, that I found it to be about 9j. 

 Now, as zinc is only 7.190, and copper 7.78, and their com- 

 pound metal, brass or bronze, is set down in the tables at 

 about 8J, whilst gold is nearly about 19J, it follows that a 

 very large proportion of gold must enter into the composition 

 of the antique. My calculations would give about 14 ounces 

 5 drachms of gold. 



The workmanship of this curious relic is highly beautiful, 

 the taste exquisite, and the detail is executed with the great- 

 est delicacy. It is formed like a coiled up snake, having ra- 

 ther more than three complete convolutions lying spirally on 

 each other. The spirals, though very close, are yet so far se- 

 parated as every where to admit of the insertion of the edge 

 of a thin sheet of paper, except at one place, near one extre- 

 mity of the coil, where about an inch and a half of the head 

 seems to have been broken off\, and again joined so perfectly 

 as not to be visible from without, except on a very close in- 

 spection ; but, on looking at it within, the joining appears 

 where the application of a ruder soldering of brass, used in 

 repairing the fracture, has, at the same time, been the means 

 of uniting the upper convolution to that beneath it. I must 

 remark, however, that it was in this condition when first dis- 

 covered. The whole coil is hollowed out on the inner side, a 

 wide hemispherical groove running round the interior of the 



