^S ©« antiquities in Scotland. March 14. 



The above Ik etch may be supposed to represent a 

 section of one of these circular walls, in which the 

 inner surface is taken down, so as to lay the stairs, 

 and galleries open to the view ; you may be supposed 

 to enter the lowermost stair at A, ascend the flight 

 of steps, and you land on the horizontal gallery E. 

 Before you can reach the other flight of steps you 

 must move forward to F ; and so on round the whole 

 building, till you reach the foot of the next flight o£ 

 steps at H. This you ascend till you reach the se- 

 cond gallery at I. Here you again proceed forward 

 round the whole area till you arrive at the third 

 flight of steps K ; and by a similar procefs, repeated 

 at every gallery, you at last gain the top of the whole. 

 If the paper on which the engraving is made be bent 

 in a circular form, you will thus have a most perfect 

 idea of these stairs and galleries, which you will easi- 

 ly see are altogether unlike to those in any other build- 

 ing on the globe, and clearly indicate that they must 

 liave been appropriated to some particular purpose, 

 very different from any of the ordinary uses of life. 

 I ftall next endeavour to discover what these purposes 

 were. 



Conjectures concerning the uses to which the buildings 

 above described have been appropriated. 

 When the manners of a people, and the customs to 

 which these gave rise have changed, in a country 

 •where the art of writing' was u'llknown, it must hap- 

 pen, that if any works of art have been so strong as 

 to resist the ravages of time for a long period, every 

 ^lemorial of the uses for which they were originally 

 ^intended, may be totally lest ; and it may become a 



