130 PROCEEDINGS. COTTESWOLD CLUB 1905 
also remarkable that both in India and Europe these vessels 
are often found inverted. In England it is often the 
cinerary urn which is inverted: in India this is the rule 
with the bronze vessel, which is not always found over 
or with the calcined bones, but often in quite another 
part of the circle. Mr Breeks, a very sober enquirer, fixes 
for the Nilagiris circles the lowest possible date of con- 
struction at four or five centuries ago, because the Badaga 
tribe, who entered the country some three centuries ago, 
know nothing of them. How much older they may be he 
declines to speculate, but he points out the continuity of 
custom in the present funeral rites of the Todas, which 
are performed to this very day in stone circles." 
It would be most important in considering the age 
of these monuments if we were able to arrange them in 
anything approaching a chronological sequence. In the 
Nilagiris Mr Breeks finds no apparent connexion between 
the circles and the dolmens—the former occupying the 
high, bare ridges of the plateau; the latter situated on the 
lower slopes. In his opinion the dolmens are not gener- 
ally sepulchral, and the few objects found in them differ 
from those occurring in the circles, and are probably more 
modern.” Mr Logan,3 who devoted much attention to the 
monuments in Malabar, divides them into five classes— 
megalithic remains and excavated caves, probably syn- 
chronous; caves with massive urns, and massive sepulchral 
urns not found in caves, and, lastly, modern sepulchral 
urns of small size. These last probably come latest in 
order of time, but the relative ages of the older monu- 
ments cannot, it would appear, be fixed with certainty. 
Another line of evidence by which the antiquity of 
these remains may be estimated is supplied by the attitude 
of the tribes which now occupy that part of the country 
1 Lbid., p. 96. 
2 Lbid., p. 100. 
3 “Malabar Manual,” i., 179 ff. 
