264 TRANSACTIONS. 
packing of small stones behind each. The top or covering stone 
was 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 bones, 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 64 inches in height by 43 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 top 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 
