48 Transactions. 
two cups within the circumference of one ring. The larger ring 
measures two feet across in one direction and one foot eight 
inches in the other. The cups are each three inches across, and 
the grooves respectively three and five inches long.* 
The ground all about these Balmae outhouses is very rocky. 
Large spaces of rock are exposed, and on almost all of them, 
there are not only weather-worn ovals and narrower holes, but 
faint traces of artificial handiwork, besides the distinct design 
just described and those I am about to refer to. In one large 
flat rock are two large and deep cavities, measuring about 10} in. 
by 8 in. in diameter, and respectively 6 in. and 5 in. deep. They 
are perfectly spherical at about two inches below the surface ; 
above that line their sharpness of edge loses itself in a lip, and 
the lip gradually slopes up to the actual surface of the rock. 
They may have been, originally, grinding basins, and in the 
course of thousands of years (1) have become smoothed away into 
their present oval form. Or they may, originally, have been the 
beds of large pebbles, and thereafter worked upon by the flint or 
bronze tools of our Archaic sculptors. On the rock nearest these, 
some twelve or fifteen feet to the east, there are numerous round 
suspiciously artificial-looking hollows, very shallow, but very 
regular, which lie in lines along its surface, running north-east 
and south-west, and evidently a continuation of similar cups to 
be seen in smaller numbers on another exposed piece of the same 
rock. The space between the two now exposed rocks is quite 
turfed over, yet not so deeply as to prevent our striking the rock 
below with a long-handled spud. We counted at least fifty of 
these cup-marks ; and since my first visit, rings, of the usual type, 
have been observed. Though there may be a reasonable doubt 
as to the origin of these cavities, there can be none as to the 
design and accuracy displayed in the group of petroglyphs pre- 
sently to come under our notice—the last important typical group 
of this district. 
On the rather steeply sloping surface of a very weathered and 
glaciated mass of whinstone im situ—some 100 yards or so south- 
west of Balmae—are two sets of concentric rings, one having five 
rings and an extreme diameter of 24 in., with central cup of 14 
in., being in no way more remarkable than others of the same 
* At Little Balmae Mr Hornel has found a very similar sculpturing— 
two rings within each other, but still more irregular than those described 
above, and without cup or groove. Measurement of outer ring, 18 in. by 
17 in. at widest point ; of inner ring, 13 in. by 10 in, 
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