296 Dr Hibbcrfs Observations on Vitrified Forts. 



The chief arguments for this opinion are, that the marks of 

 fire are indicative of an accidental rather than of an intentional 

 effect, and that vitrified forts are generally situated on lofty 

 insulated hills, in such a chain or mutual connection as to allow 

 of telegraphic communications to be conveyed from one station 

 to another at a considerable distance. 



But even this theory is not without its difficulties. In a 

 dissertation lately printed in a volume of the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, by James Smith, Esq. of Jor- 

 dan Hill, a fort in the Kyles of Bute is described, which oc- 

 cupies the site of an islet or holm not more than twelve or 

 fifteen feet above high water mark. Arguing therefore from 

 this circumstance, as well as from the regularity of its vitrifi- 

 cation, the writer comes to the conclusion, that the effect of 

 signal-fires will not account for the fort in question, because 

 the situation, in a flat surrounded on every side by hills of 

 considerable elevation, does not appear at all calculated for 

 such a purpose ; and because, in the next place, the regularity 

 of its form seems still more inconsistent with the effects of an 

 accidental cause. 



Many who have supposed that the vitrification of these an- 

 cient remains was the result of beacon-fires have offered con- 

 jectures on their date. In a communication read to the Phi- 

 losophical Society of Manchester, by Dr Milligan, the author 

 is of opinion that thev were in use among the earliest inhabi- 

 tants of Caledonia ; and he supposes that, as the invasion of 

 Agricola was attended by a fleet on the coast of Scotland, the 

 fires seen in the interior of the country, which Tacitus describes 

 as the flames of dwellings kindled by the inhabitants, might 

 have been signal-fires communicating from hill to hill, as, for 

 instance, from Stonehaven to Bute, where a line of vitrified 

 forts may be traced ; and that this telegraphic communication 

 was the prelude of the battle of the Grampians. Various other 

 writers, however, assign to these forts a much later date, par- 

 ticularly the contributors to Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Re- 

 ports. They conceive that they were in chief requisition as 

 beacons during the descents of the Northmen, which lasted 

 several centuries. 



This last opinion many, if not most, of the vitrified silos 



