£792 antiquities in Scotland. alg 
«hat they may, and actually do, all concur, on many oc~ 
casions, to favour the deceit. “The formation of the 
hollow bason has been already explained ; and the 
well, with which every one of these forts has been 
provided, and which is still discoverable in all of 
‘them, though, for the most part, now filled up with 
stones to prevent accidents, might very readily be 
mistaken for the mouth of the volcano. 
In these circumstances, a casual visitor may be ex 
cused if he fhould believe in such strong appearan 
ces, without inquiring minutely into the matter. But 
@ philosophical inquirer, who resolved coolly to in- 
‘vestigate the matter, would soqa find reason to suspect 
that he might be mistaken. The vitrified mafses 
themselves are of a nature extremely different from 
real Java ; so different, indeed, that nothing but the 
difficulty of accounting for the way in which they 
could be otherwise produced, would ever have oc- 
‘casioned them to be confounded with one another. 
In real Java, the heat has been so intense as to fuse 
almost all matters, and reduce them into one homo- 
geneous mafs ; but in the matter of which we now 
treat, the heat has been so slight as to vitrify searce 
any of the stones, but barely to fuse the vitrescible 
matter that was interposed between them; which, 
‘alone, points out a very efsential difference between 
the nature of the two. But if he fhould proceed 
‘farther in this investigation, he would also discover, 
on digging into the hill in any part, that no /ava, or 
any other matters that fhow marks of having been 
in the fire, are to be found ; but that they consist of 
rock, or other strata of mineral matter, similar to 
what is found’in other parts of the country. Nei~ 
