312 Dr Hibbcrt on the Vitrified Cairns of Orkney. 



cuss ; but shall merely remark, that the result produced upou 

 the loose stones, which in the form of cairns supported the fuel, 

 is most astonishing. In some instances, the vitrification has ex- 

 tended to the very bottom of a cairn, showing an almost entire 

 compact mass. Nothing, in short, can display the effects ex- 

 hibited more satisfactorily, than by contrasting them with the 

 appearances induced on subjacent stones by the fires of the 

 kelp-burners of Orkney ; where, if vitrification is at all pro- 

 duced, it is slight in the extreme, and rarely cements stones to 

 an extent exceeding a few inches. This difference would in- 

 dicate that a vitrification, in order to be considerable, must be 

 a work of time, demanding that the same cairn for perhaps a 

 century or more should be the unvaried site on which beacon 

 fires were kindled. 



The cairns of Elsness are not, however, all vitrified alike. 

 On some of them I could not detect a single burnt stone, 

 while in other instances a cairn would almost put on the ap- 

 pearance of one compact burnt mass. Too many of them also 

 were concealed by a thick sward, so that their character for 

 vitrification still remains indeterminate. 



Such is the interesting vitrified site of Elsness, which I was 

 as gratified in exploring, as upon finding that the rescue of its 

 cairns from the unfortunate state of dilapidation, to which too 

 many Orcadian antiquities have been subject, has been due to 

 the very intelligent proprietor, John Traill Urquhart, Esq. of 

 Elsness, who, desirous of ascertaining their origin, and fully 

 aware of their importance to the archaeologist, had given strict 

 orders for their preservation. Frevious to these injunctions, 

 Mr Urquhart informed me, a number of these cairns, during 

 the process of ploughing up an adjacent corn field, had been 

 rooted up and levelled. 



With these particulars of the actual appearances presented 

 at Elsness, I shall for the present content myself; and if any 

 theoretical advantage is intended to be derived from them, it 

 must be sought for amidst historical as well as local evidence; 

 but into this wide investigation I am precluded entering, no 

 less on account of its length, than that it would involve details 

 which arc more calculated for the pages of Antiquarian Trans- 

 actions than for your Journal. I shall therefore do no more 



