ANCIENT CHAMBEUED TUMULI. 45 



by handj as there is no appearance of the lathe having 

 been used. A bronze pia was found, with a round head, 

 and a neatly finished whet-stone, or toucb-stone for trying 

 metals, about three inches long, and perforated so as to be 

 worn as an ornament. Whether tbe ashes were disposed 

 in an um or stone cavity could not be exactly ascertained; 

 the workmen state they were lying on the flat stone at the 

 bottom of the eist, and were not in quantity above a 

 quart. On examining the loose wall which formed the 

 back of the eist towards the south, the side walls seemed 

 continued in that direction ; it was accordingly ordei"ed to 

 be taken away, and these side walls were followed for fif- 

 teen feet, where was the termination, without any appear- 

 ance of opening except from above. From this Mr. 

 Skinner concludes that if any other interments had been 

 made, some of the covering stones of the passage would 

 have been removed, and again replaced, after the walling 

 of the second deposit had been finished ; or the passage, 

 says he, might have been left to pour libations to the 

 manes of the first interment ; for on digging up the soil in 

 the bottom of the passage many fragments of pottery were 

 found, but none of the same kind. Several of these frag- 

 ments had more the appearance of Roman pottery than 

 British, having evidently been worked on the lathe ; but 

 some were brown unbaked clay. Mr. Skinner states that 

 there were the remains of another barrow of similar dimen- 

 sions, to the east of the one opened by him, and within ten 

 paces of it, which he was informed had been opened sixty 

 years before, for the sake of the stones, and the cists and 

 interments destroyed ; and he adds (I am sorry to say), 

 this has been the fate of the tumulus here described, as it 

 bas been of thousahda and teria of thousands that have 



