52 TORRS WARREN. 
Truly the Zorrs Warren is a wonderful place, with its abundant 
archeological remains of peoples of past ages; but not a single 
inscribed stone has been ‘‘unearthed” to tell us the name or 
qualifications of any one of them. 
NoteE.—Since the above paper was read to the Society I have 
made a great many traverses in the Torrs, and done some digging. 
The results of the latter have been to make out what I think are 
some new points in Scottish archzeology in connection with the 
iron bloomeries. The first was the finding of the twyeres through 
which the blast (air) had been supplied to the furnaces. These 
twyeres are shaped just like those of a modern blast-furnace 
twyere, the only difference being that they are made of fireclay 
instead of iron. In size they are about four inches long and three 
inches wide, the hole for the passage of the blast being about half 
an inch in diameter, and this passage often shows wearing from the 
scourer of the blast. The second was the finding of the iron bars 
which had been used in the working of the little furnaces. The 
actual bars are so rusted that nothing can be made of them ; but 
I got bits of the slag which still retain the exact “ print” of the bars, 
showing that they had been square and seven-sixteenths of an inch 
in thickness. The results of these diggings also showed that 
there had been at least two types of bloomeries—one where the 
metal had been smelted in fireclay crucibles, and the other where 
it had been allowed to accumulate in the “hearths” till a sufficient 
quantity was made. Perhaps where the crucibles were used the 
process may have been a refining one where the iron or steel was 
smelted over again. The shape of the ‘“‘cinder-blocks” is also 
worthy of note, they, for the most part, being pretty much like 
birds’ nests, and from three to eight inches in diameter—some- 
times they are solid. I call them ‘“‘bloomery dottles.” In 
Ayrshire, at Shewalton, I once found an ingot of iron which had 
evidently been made in the hearth of a bloomery, its shape being 
that of a solid cinder-block. It is pretty free from slag and only 
required “shingling,” that is, heating and hammering, to make it 
into good serviceable material. 
I once tried a fireclay twyere on a modern blast furnace, but it 
lasted only a short time. 
