Clifton College Scientific Society. 97 



ceremonies of relig-ion were performed, the pile in the middle of 

 these circles must have originally been altars, whereon human 

 sacrifices to Odin and Thor were dffered. The victim, we are told, 

 was laid on the stones, and his life extinguished by crushing the 

 spine. The priest officiated in the inner boundaries while the people 

 assembled round the outer ring. How different is the scene now ! 

 The tluinder-cloud still passes over the spot, and the altar, washed by 

 the rain of centuries and long ago deserted, is now trodden under the 

 hoofs of the shelty. Close by is Heog's Hill, which is interpreted to 

 have been a place of execution, Havger Heog signifying a *' heap of 

 stones," and on its summit, Dr. James Hunt, of the Anthropological 

 Society of London, in 1865, exhumed a quantity of human bones, 

 besides roughly worked stones. Dr. Hibbert who searched into its 

 history, says that "if any accused person, after hearing the 

 sentence of the layman, was desirous to appeal to the voice of the 

 people, he tried to effect his escape in a direction that led to the more 

 westerly circle of stones, situated on the adjoining hill; and if he 

 reached in safety that sacred site of ground, his life was preserved, 

 but if the popular indignation was against him he was pursued on his 

 way to the sanctuary, and anyone, before he reached it, might put 

 him to death." 



One hundred and thirty yards to the north of the large circle, may 

 be seen the remains of a fine sepulchral cairn, or tumulus of stones. 

 It has been much disturbed, but I should say its original diameter 

 was about ten yards, and the rough pieces of serpentine of which it is 

 made must have reached the height of several feet. In its centre 

 there is an oblong cist, or kistvaen, made of flat stone slabs set on end, 

 and it is divided into two cells by another stone laid across the middle. 

 '1 he lid of the cist is gone, and it has been rifled of its relics. The 

 above-mentioned seven veissels of chlorite schist, in the British 

 Museum, were taken from a kistvaen in Unst, and I conclude they 

 came from this one. The length of the cist is in a E.N.E. and 

 "\V.S."W. direction, and the western division measures three feet nine 

 inches long, and three feet broad ; tlie other half 'is four feet long and 

 three feet four inches Mide. Its depth is two feet six inches, the 

 bottom not being paved with stone. 



Twenty yards soutli of this cairn are the traces of another one, 

 opened in all probability at the same time. 



Baliasta is a sheltered hamlet north-west of Balta, and contains a 

 ruinous church, of the same style of architecture as the others I have 

 alluded to. Kear it, Dr. Hilibert, writing in 1817, has recorded the 

 existence of concentiic circles ; but no signs of these can now be seen, 

 having since been obliterated. They are said to be of larger diameter 

 than those on Crucifleld, but displayed the same construction. '• They 

 are formed "says Hibbert " by three concentric circles, cut into the 

 stratum of soil that covers the serpentine, into which boulder stones 

 or earth were thrown, until they rose above the level of the ground. 

 The diameter of the outermost circle is sixty-seven feet, of the middle 

 one filty-four and three-quarters feet, and of the innermost forty feet. 



