FORTS, VITRIFIED. 
Vitrified waned mound, or pile of loose stones, of 
_ Forts. porsarsr te shapes, few of them larger than a 
Ym" man may lift with both hands, though some few are 
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ont 
ten times that bulk. When you get on the top of this 
mound, or enter by an ing in the east end of it, 
you discover that it does not consist of a of such 
stones'so as to make a large cairn, but that is an 
area of grass ground in the middle, which may be 
60 yards long, by 25 wide. The mound of stones 
which surrounds this space has, on the inside, the ap- 
ofa thick strong wall that had for a long time’ 
in ruins. The height of these ruins above the 
inner area is pretty uniform, and may be from 9 to 12 
feet. A slight inspection discovers, that what has the’ 
appearance of a ruinous wall, has never been connect- 
ed together by any cement, as nothing of that sort can 
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sentderhaiel ies totaal vs davinden ct wakes waite 
by the force of fire in various degrees.” 
the same county is the hill of Dun o’ Deer, in the 
vale of Garioch, on which there are also vitrifications ; 
as on Dun Creich, the remains of a building con- 
structed with lime mortar. This toweris of larger di- 
pacer oy a oti , than that on Dun 
Creich, ‘being 60 feet square, and the walls about 12 
of which have been used in its con- 
is cireumstance, however, does not mili- 
inst the supposition, that the hill was used as a 
i -station after the tower was built. 
About four miles east from Forfar, is the castle-hill 
of Finhaven, the vitrifications on which have led Dr 
Anderson to compare them to the effects of the fire in 
scanmtanaidealtockgtniahes-aecte wetec he’ ara 
the fire. : 
The walls in some parts of this fort have been laid 
bare, so as to appear at east ten feet high. We have 
no ion of the vitrification. Dr Ander- 
that the wall had been built previously to the applica- 
tion of fire, in whatever way that may have been made. 
The stones are in courses, and banded, as we have been 
informed by the Rev. Dr Jamieson, (to whom we are 
an teures state respecting this fort), 
and Seam hiaye Beet #ery nequatty and i lar~ 
ly affected by the fire, and many of them not at all. Se- 
ven or varieties of stone appear to have been made 
use of. there been an intention to vitrify this wall, 
the most fusible stones would to have been se- 
lected ; but instead of this, been placed in the 
wall indiscriminately with others. We have already re- 
oo ore Nwethenen ins seem, in some instances, to 
n taken to irregularities in the ground, 
in B00 for a level area GiTik eau Our informa- 
tion ing this fort is not so clear as to enable us to 
whether the unusual height of the wall can be 
accounted for in thisway. Fordefendinga fort from with- 
in, a rampart of less height would have been sufficient. 
There are several cross walls on this hill, and the ves- 
tiges of outworks ; and altogether it seems to offer much 
527 
satisfaction on a careful examination. We regret, that Vitrified 
to some of its peculiarities, 
us to visit the castle-hill of 
our information, in 
came too late to 
Finhaven, before it was necessary to send this article 
to the press... It is said, that between this hill and that 
of Laws, already noticed, there is another fort, which 
completes the communication over a very wide extent 
of country. By keeping in view the idea, that signals 
by fire have been in use at the period when these for- 
tifications were constructed ; and looking around from 
the summit of the hills on which they have been pla- 
ced, for hills similar in situation and shape, cu-- 
larly at the entrances of vallies, or on ridges which in« 
the view ; many vitrified forts will, we confi- 
dently expect, be discovered, and communications far 
more extensive than any hitherto observed may be tra~_ 
ced. As the repulsion of foreign invasion was an ob- 
ject of interest to the country at large, hostile tribes 
and clans would naturally unite for the common defence ;) 
and, as their Scandinavian neighbours were in the ha- 
bit of frequently molesting them, no plan for alarming 
the country with the utmost celerity appears so natu- 
ral, or so effectual, as the lighting of fires. 
A few miles from Fort-William, in the parish of Kil- 
malie, is the hill of Dundhairdehall, the summit of 
which is surrounded by a vitrified mass of stones, 
. This hill commands a view of a great part of Mamore, 
and the whole of Glen Nevis. It is extremely proba- 
ble, that this was the signal station of the ancient castle 
of Inverlochy. In this opinion the writer of this ar- 
ticle was confirmed by Dr M‘Knight, who visited this 
hill, and who mothers TH his a struck ~~ the 
probability of conjecture, in the account he has 
iven of "Ben Nevis in the Memoirs of the Wernerian 
atural History Par 
In the valley of the Beauly river, in Inverness-shire, 
about two miles north-west of the church of Kiltarlity, 
is a vitrified fort, called Dun Thionn. It is circular, 
and about thirty yards in diameter. 
The latest writer on the subject of our article is 
Dr M‘Culloch, who states his opinion in a memoir, 
published in the Transactions of the London Geologi- 
cal Society. He adopts the opinion of vitrified forts 
having been constructed as places of defence, by ce- 
menting the walls by means of fire ; and rejects, ina 
perem manner, the opinion which we have at- 
tem to defend, viz. that the origin of the vitrifica- 
tions is to be found in the practice, universally em- 
ployed by our ancestors, of alarming the country, when 
threatened by invasion, by fires lighted on conspicuous 
situations. 
Dr M‘Culloch has guessed, by pacing, the dimen- 
sions of the of the vitrifications on the 
hill of Dun Mac Sni paidee { ryote vt Pearly 
of the ruins of Beregonium. He acknowledges, that a 
great was concealed by being covered with sod, 
ernick’ he had no means of onivng: yet he has 
given a plan of an extensive and regular set of inclo- 
sures, He has not favoured us with the shape of the 
summit, on which the position of the vitrified masses 
observed elsewhere always depends; but, from the 
shading of his plan, we may presume, that the inelo- 
sures stand on different elevations, and that those ele. 
vations command a view of different portions of coun- 
try. It is stated, that the portion of ground inclo- 
“sed is in length about 200 yards ; whereas on the plan 
two inclosures are marked, one 56 paces long, 
and the other 37. One side of the latter appears to be 
Forts. 
