266 TRANSACTIONS. 
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 24 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 Kirkeudbright 
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 strengthen 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 more 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 
