236 Kintail and Glenelg, with Notices of the BrocJis. [Sess. 



4 feet on the other. It tops an entrance of about 4 feet 8 

 inches in height, although originally this may have been more, 

 as soil and rubbish have largely collected since it became a 

 ruin ; moreover, a short distance in, the height is 6 feet 6 

 inches. The width of the entrance-passage until the door- 

 checks are reached is barely 3 feet, but widens on the inte- 

 rior side of those to 4 feet 3 inches. The length is 12 feet 

 6 inches, being about a foot more than the thickness of the 

 wall, but this may be accounted for by a large flag which pro- 

 jects from the roof of the passage into the interior. The 

 door-checks, consisting of two upright slabs, are placed at a 

 distance of 4 feet from the exterior, and immediately behind 

 these are two small spaces which in all probability were used 

 as sockets to admit the ends of a strong bar (generally sup- 

 posed to have been of wood), with the view of securing a door 

 which may have been of the same material, although in the 

 opinion of competent authorities stone flags are conjectured to 

 have been applied to this purpose. At a distance of 7 feet 6 

 inches from the outer doorway, on the left-hand side as one 

 enters, occurs a small opening, 2 feet 7 inches in height by 1 8 

 inches in breadth, which was a means of entrance into the 

 guard-chamber formed in the thickness of the wall. This 

 chamber, 10 feet 6 inches or so in length, with a width of 4 

 to 5 feet, is considerably destroyed, a part of the roof having 

 collapsed, and several of the large binding-stones removed : still, 

 enough exists to show the original formation and substantial 

 character of the fabric, though, in reality, the tower is a mere 

 wreck of its former self. Of the lower chambers on the 

 ground-floor four portions are apparent, with an average width 

 of 3 feet 3 inches, or thereby, one of them tolerably perfect, 

 and showing, in a marked degree, that peculiar mode of over- 

 lapping the stones whereby the builders, to whom the arch 

 was evidently unknown, brought the two walls close enough 

 together at the top to admit of their being spanned by im- 

 mense flat beam-like slabs that formed the roof of the lower 

 chambers and the floor of the gallery above. On the north- 

 east and west sides the tower is most perfect, that facing the 

 north-west being most dilapidated, as this was the point last 

 assailed by the dyke-building boor. All traces of the interior 

 windows have long vanished, but from the position of some of 



