62 A Pict's House. 



that case the entrance, or door as we may call it, must have been 

 of very limited dimensions, as it usually was, indeed, in buildings 

 of the kind, and probably concealed, being six or seven feet 

 below the level of the ground. But there was tiiis difference 

 between the building at Pitcur and a good many others which 

 have been figured and described, that the gallery was not low in 

 height for a certain distance from the entrance, and only 

 gradually increased as you advanced inwards, but as soon as 

 entrance was obtained you could stand upright and walk along 

 with a height of fully six feet. As far as I could judge, the 

 entrance was in the south side, and the gallery extended from 

 west, or a little to the north of west, not in a straight line 

 towards east, but by a gentle curve towards south-east and 

 south. This is one of the peculiarities in buildings of the kind 

 that iiave been explored, that tbctj hardly ever proceed in a 

 straight line, but are almost invariably curved, and for the most 

 part terminate in chambers of greater width and heiglit than the 

 galleries wliich lead to them, and in some cases have smaller 

 chambers branching off from the sides. In the one at Pitcur, 

 however, I did not observe any arrangement of this kind, and 

 whether it widened out towards the extreme end could not be 

 ascertained, as it had not been fully opened up. There was no 

 perceptible widening as far as we were able to proceed, which 

 would be a distance of 40 or 45 feet. There was another 

 peculiarity of which notice should be taken. One of the large 

 boulders on the left-hand side, which constituted part of the wall 

 of the gallery, was found to be covered with the cup and ring 

 markings which are not uncommon on the boulders of stone 

 circles, or other earth-fast boulders, or on the face of rocks. 

 These cup and ring markings, the origin and purpose of which 

 constitute one of the unsolved problems of archseology, are of 

 frequent occurrence in this country, and are not confined to 

 Britain, but are found also in Scandinavia, in France, in 

 Switzerland, and in Germany. There was no evidence to show 

 whether the markings on the one found in the subterranean 

 building at Pitcur had been made upon it after it was built into 

 the structure or whether they existed upon it before it was used 

 for this purpose. The latter, I think, is the more probable 

 conjecture, inasmuch as there is reason to believe that the cup 

 and ring markings are of greater antiquity than the earth houses 

 of which the one at Pitcur is an example. Dr Anderson, of the 



