26(j Tkansactions. 



with a running pattern, and lines going round the upper part and 

 lines converging from near the shoulder to the bottom. It was 

 more glazed on the outside, and the burnt clay of which it was 

 composed was much thicker and the mouth coarser and larger than 

 in the one discovered the preceding week. 



There was nothing more found, so the trenches were filled up 

 and the mound smoothed over, and the second cairn was attacked 

 in the same way by cutting two trenches from the south and east 

 to meet in the centre. The stones which surrounded this one on 

 the outside were much larger than those encountered in the other, 

 and the workmen had not gone far till they came on pieces of a 

 very plain urn with a quantity of bones, and close by a large flat 

 stone, 3 feet by 21- in size, which, on being carefully lifted, 

 exhibited a quantity of bones resting on a second but smaller slab 

 of stone, which was also lifted, and a quantity of bones found under 

 this, also resting on another and still smaller stone, which was at 

 the bottom of a sort of well cut out of the solid rock and going 

 down about three feet. There was no urn found there, nor was 

 there any grave or chamber found in the centre, but to the left of it 

 traces of artificial workmanship were found, which it was resolved 

 to follow up some other time. The proprietors of the ground have 

 presented the urns and other objects found to the Kirkcudbright 

 Museum. The urns are beautifully moulded and prove a know- 

 ledge of the pottery wheel, and as they are imperfectly burnt, the 

 makers, in order to streugtlien them, mixed small pieces of hard 

 stones or perhaps quartz with the clay (all angular). I append a 

 few remarks made by Mr Hamilton in his communication to me : — 

 " One curious feature, I wonder if it is common elsewhere, is that 

 there were three layers of stones with cremated bones placed 

 between them, and all in a well kind of a pit in the solid rock. 

 The largest stones were on the top, the centre one much smaller, 

 and the bottom one smaller still. The bones were evidently 

 placed there after cremation, as all were in small pieces, mostly 

 under an inch square. There was no cremation before the Bronze 

 Age. There was no tinge of iron or rust on these bones as would 

 have existed had any iron weapons or instruments been found near 

 them. The Iron Age commenced about 150 B.C., so we may put 

 the age of these remains as at least moi'e than 2000 years ago. 

 The urns establish the fact that whoever put them there were not 

 savages. They testify a belief in a future existence, and the 

 cremation teaches a belief in purification by fire. There were no 



