11-4 Field Meetings. 



undressed tree trunks laid closely together, diiferent sections 

 running in directions transverse to each other. The oak tree has 

 been extensively used ; also the birch and the alder. One birch 

 trunk was noted still covered with bark wonderfully fresh in 

 appearance. A hole cut in it and a prepared beam indicate that 

 the structure has been pinned together by the mortise-and-tenon 

 device. An outer ring of piles has formed a stockade for the 

 protection of the artificial island. It has thus been made clear 

 that the crannog is of the kind most common in this country, and 

 the construction of which is succinctly described by Dr Munro in 

 his most recent work, '• Prehistoric Scotland." 



Gradual subsidence is to be expected in the case of a struc- 

 ture founded upon a more or less unstable bottom and compacted 

 of more or less compressible and perishable materials. Traces of 

 as many as half-a-dozen hearths, one above the other, have been 

 found in various crannogs, indicating that the original floor has 

 been overlaid by a succession of others. In the Lochrutton case 

 there has obviously been a considerable sinking. The floor which 

 has been exposed is several feet below the present winter level of 

 the loch, althoug-h the loch has shrunk to some extent within 

 living memory, and the probability is that older floors may exist 

 beneath it. Little heaps of charcoal and several small fragments 

 of brown pottery are the only domestic relics which have been 

 unearthed. Formerly, we understand, when the island was a 

 barren resort of g'ulls, fragments of bone could be picked up in 

 wonderful profusion. These have been incorporated into the 

 substance of the trees which now luxuriate upon it. 



Lake dwellings have existed over a wide area of continental 

 Europe as well as in the British Isles. In recent years remark- 

 able discoveries have been made of submerged villages in Swiss 

 lakes, the existence of which is attested by forests of piles, which 

 had supported the huts, in a manner still perpetuated in various 

 parts of the world, including South America and the East Indies. 

 In Britain the common form was that of the crannog or artificial 

 island, constructed usually in the manner above described, but 

 sometimes in large measure of stones, and often probably having 

 as a nucleus a small natural island or submerged rock. They 

 abound in Dumfriesshire and Galloway. The Antiquarian Society 

 has in past periods of its history investigated to some extent 

 crannogs in the Castle Loch of Lochmaben, at Sanquhar, at Clon- 



