Address of the Vice-President. 25 



Tlie common feature of them all was the tovjer, — which 

 standing alone, and by itself, was a stronghold. 



The tower was sometimes of a round form, sometimes it 

 was square : when on a large scale it was commonly the 

 latter. 



The lower apartments were for stores or cattle, or for 

 prisoners or a guard. The family lived in the higher portion 

 of the structure, which was reached by means of a narrow 

 winding interior stair. The rooms were small, and the win- 

 dows — which were often only for the higher apartments — 

 were narrow apertures in the walls. The whole was sur- 

 mounted by a flat roof, with battlements and machicollations. 



When there were two or more towers they were connected 

 together with curtains or connecting walls, and the whole 

 was surrounded by fosses and ditches or natural defences. 



As in the case of the great castellated mansions, so also 



The Cranoges, 



or lake dwellings, had recourse to the same natural defences 

 of situation. 



Cranoges are of great antiquity, and found in almost all 

 parts of Europe. They appear to have been employed for 

 the purposes of retreat and safety, rather than as ordinary 

 abodes. 



They are to be found in all the three counties of the So- 

 ciety's district. In one of our summer excursions we visited 

 the cranoge in the Black Loch of Sanquhar, and in the 

 President's Address of 8th December, 1865, we have been 

 favoured with an interesting account of the examination, — 

 as in the same address we have an account of the lochs and 

 cranoges at Colvend. In May, 1867, the Society visited 

 Loch Kindar, " on one of the islands of which stand the re- 

 mains of one of the few pre-Reformation churches, while the 

 other may have been an ancient lake dwelling."* Two islands 



* " Dumfries Courier," 21st May, 186T. 



