264 Transactions. 



packing of small stones behind each. The top or covering stone 

 Avas lying alongside— a large irregular-shaped stone, four inches in 

 thickness. This had completely covered the chamber. The floor 

 was composed of two slates, which rested on the soil. The whole 

 was quite clear of anything except two pieces of arm tones, a 

 small piece of a skull, and a piece of a left under jaw, in which 

 were three teeth (two molar and one canine) — young fresh teeth 

 evidently belonging to a youth. At the west side of the cist was 

 a small urn, which, however, fell to pieces very shortly after being 

 exposed to the air. Its contents were apparently nothing but a 

 little earth. This urn was 6^ inches in height by 4;^^ inches in 

 width. It was well proportioned, had no lid, and was of burnt 

 clay. It was ornamented with old Celtic ornamentation of a kind 

 known to belong to the bronze age, and might have lain undis- 

 turbed where it was found at least 2000 years. The ornamenta- 

 tion was evidently done by hand with a comb or some such toothed 

 instrument tracing it round the vase. It consisted of lines drawn 

 round, but not regularly, of zig-zag lines with a chevrony appear- 

 ance, and was all over the outside of the urn from the top to the 

 bottom. There was no ornamentation inside nor at the bottom 

 outside. 



Noticing remains of two large cairns in Woodfield, and having 

 obtained leave from the proprietors, Mr Hope and Lady Isabella 

 Hope of St. Mary's Isle, and the tenant, Mr William Rigg, the 

 members of the Kirkcudbrightshire Museum Association proceeded 

 to open these cairns on the 17th of April. Both cairns are about 

 the same size, being some 200 feet in circumference, quite round, 

 and rising only some six feet from the natural surface of the field, 

 as for years back they had been probably used to get stones for 

 dykes and rude drains connected with the agriculture of the land 

 around. They are 150 yards apart, and nearly north and south of 

 each other. Two good, stout, intelligent labourers, under the 

 direction of Mr M'Kie of Anchorlee, commenced at seven in the 

 morning on the most southern of the two (which lay on the toji of 

 a small hillock that had some half a century ago been occupied by 

 the officials of the trigonometrical survey while they were surveying 

 the surrounding country between 1840 and 1850) and cut two 

 trenches at right angles to each other towards the centre, keeping 

 the natural surface of the ground as the floor of the trench. At 

 first they pierced through a circle of smaller stones, which had 

 evidently fallen at different times from the cairn ; then they came 



