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would do no discredit to our best modern cabinet-makers. It 
is turned in oak, and hooped with brass, four and a half inches 
high, and four inches diameter. There were originally a pair, 
but one was unfortunately broken. 
‘‘ The purpose for which such a structure may have been 
made is altogether matter of conjecture, as no reference to 
such is made inany of our annals. Some have thought that 
they were places of sepulture, and the bones those of the vic- 
tims offered at the entombment of some powerful chief; but a 
friend has suggested that such could not be the case: first, be- 
cause that at such a ceremony, the custom was an holocaust, 
in which the animals would be consumed en masse ; and, se- 
condly, he knows of no instance of wild animals, like deer, cap- 
tured in the chase, being so offered; but he then suggests, 
that these islands, inaccessible when the boats were secured, 
might not have been unacceptable retreats to the instruments 
of feudal tyranny, or to petty chieftains who lived by border 
robbery; and that, in the course of years, the bones thrown over 
the side by the little garrison might have accumulated to the 
extent of what have been found ; and the pins and other articles 
of that date found along with them may well have been drop- 
ped in the carelessness of such vagrant life, whilst the rough 
culinary arrangements of former days might account for the 
burned earth. But it is a curious matter if such were the 
case, and I am inclined to deem it not far from the fact, that, 
amongst the numerous pins found, scarce any two are critically 
alike. 
‘¢ He then goes on to suggest that, in later times, the island 
that had afforded a fastness to predatory chiefs might have 
become the residence of the artisan ; and, combining the fact 
of the proximity of the ruined church, that such artisans might 
well have united the clerical and laical characters, and been 
monks, labouring at the smithy, the turning-lathe, or the foun- 
dry ; and that this would account for the bones, horn, and iron 
articles of more recent date. The horn dises discovered may have 
