A GALLOWAY STONE-AGE VILLAGE. 87 
observed interesting vestiges of what appeared to have been 
unusually large branches. One piece had many of the branches. 
forking upwards from it for a distance of 2 or 3 feet. They had 
been placed vertically and in the direction of the growth of 
_ the tree —a direction, it will be remembered, contrary to that of 
the other wood-work of the walls and of the logs of the under 
structure. As none of these larger branches were found at the 
level of the piles, the nature of the wood was not determinable. 
At the higher levels the interior of the branches had vanished, 
leaving a vacancy which was surrounded and protected by a 
rather hard crust of black matter. 
At this end of the site the sand has been discoloured red 
and brown and hardened by the presence of ferruginous matter, 
and in the vacant interiors of the branches there was a slight 
sprinkling of light coloured sand not so discoloured. Probably 
the white sand in the interiors gained admission through cracks. 
at a time when the interior had become much decayed or had 
vanished, but before the eremacausis of the bark or crust, or the 
hardening and discoloration of the outside sand, had taken full 
eirect. 
SUPPOSED ENTRANCE PASSAGES. 
In testing the ground at various points in the immediate 
vicinity of the pits, it was found that the superficial black layer 
was of almost uniform thickness. Beneath it was sand somewhat 
dark in colour. At some places, though not in all, near the foot 
of the black layer was observed a very thin layer—a mere 
sprinkling—of whitish sand. 
From a careful inspection of this sprinkling it was con- 
jectured that the sand composing it had been carried by a gale 
from the shore region, where great quantities of white sand occur, 
and, as can be proved, did also occur during the later pre-historic 
periods. 
The drifting sand had been deposited in varying degrees of 
thickness, like a slight fall of snow which has drifted over some- 
what uneven ground, and in some spots it was absent. 
A section of the soil at the east wall of the pit at Site No. 3 
revealed the presence of the same sprinkling of white sand. It 
occurred under the black layer and was several inches thick, 
thinning out on each side. It was not so white nor so readily 
