VI8IEH. 



VITKIFIED FOUTS. 



Ml 



the Supreme (Vjshn'u). and indissolubly connected with, but not the 

 same with him ; they quote the fallowing line from tlw Mabopaniahad : 

 " Ai the bin! uid th string, as JUIOM ud trues, M riven ami oceans. M 

 fresh water and nil, as the thief and hi* booty, M uian and object* of 

 MOM to an God and Ufa distinct, ami both are ever indefinable ;" and 

 titia one from the Garuda-Purin'a : " Kroni the difference between 

 omniscience and partial knowledge, omnipotence and inferior power, 

 supremacy and subservience, the union of Ood and life cannut take 

 place." ThU division of the VaUhn'avos U however oonfined to the 

 peninsula, and is altogether unknown in Gangetio Hindustan. 



Betides theae eecU, which are the most conspicuous, the Vaishu'ava* 

 comprehend the Khakis, Maluk UUis, SeuaU, Mira-Bais, NimAvaU, 

 Charan'a-DAaia, 4o. 



ThU account of the Vauhn'ava sect* has been chiefly derived fi -urn 

 1'rofestor WUaun'i valuable paper in the fifteenth volume of the 

 ' Aaiatio Researches,' to which we refer the reader fur fuller 

 information. 



Mott of theae religious sect* are divided into clerical and lay 

 members, aa it were : the bulk of the votaries, though not always, 

 belong to the latter; while the real, or clerical class, ore sometimes 

 monastic and sometime* secular. Of the oomobitic member* of the 

 different communities most punue a wandering and mendicant life ; 

 indeed all of them at some period have led such a life : but when old 

 and infirm they sit down in some previously existing mal/i, or monas- 

 tery, or establish one of their own. 



The Maths, Asthals, or AkAraa, the residences of the monastic com- 

 munities, are scattered over the whole country; they generally com- 

 prehend a set of huts or chambers for the Mahanta, or superior, and 

 his permanent pupiU; a temple sacred to the deity whom they wor- 

 ship, or the Somidh, or shrine of the founder of the sect, or some emi- 

 nent teacher; and a Dharrna SalA, one or more sheda or buildings 

 for the accommodation of the mendicant* or travellers, who are 

 constantly visiting the Math. Ingress and egress are free to all : 

 and indeed a restraint upon personal liberty seems never to have 

 entered into the conception of any of the religious legislators of the 

 Hindus. 



Of the inanimate objects sacred to VUhn'u the Salagr&ma stone U 

 the principal ; it forms a proM table object of traffic, and enjoys the 

 highest veneration of moat of the Vaishn'avas. The Silagramoa are 

 mostly ammonite!, found in the bed of the Gandhakt river, of the 

 sue of an orange. Tho reasons why this stone U worshipped are very 

 contradictory and by no means satisfactory. We refer to the most 

 plausible ones in the ' As. lies.,' vol. xii. ; W. Hamilton, ' Description 

 of Hindustan,' vol. i. ; Forbes, ' Oriental Memoirs,' vol. iii. ; and Hitter, 

 ' Erdkunde,' voL iv. 

 VISlKlt. jVum] 



VISION. [Lionr; also ETH, in NAT. HIST. Div.] 

 VISITATION. [ARCHDEACON; BISHOP.] 

 VLSI lOil. [COLLEGE ; USES, CHARITABLE.] 



VISUAL D18TA N CE. The relative position in which objects are 

 seen U usually expressed by the relative direction of lines drawn to 

 them from the eye ; and the angle contained by two such linen is the 

 angular or ritual dittance between the objects. [DISTANCE.] Vnual 

 ag*itudt may be estimated in a similar way, forming what U called 

 the ritual UN If or apparent magnitude of an object. 



VITKLLIN. A form of albumen found in tho yelk of egg*. 

 [ALBUHKN.] 



Mutinies ELECTRICITY. [ELECTRICITY, COMMOK.] 

 VITRIFICATION. [GLAM.] 



VITltlFIED FORTS is a name that has been given to certain 

 remarkable stone enclosures existing in parts of Scotland, which 

 appear to have been subjected to the action of fire. Attention was 

 first called to the subject by Mr. John Williams, a civil engineer of the 

 last century, who had examined some of them while conducting certain 

 mining operations in the Highlands under the orders of the Board of 

 Annexed lor Forfeited) Estates in 1773, and who, in 1777, published a 

 disquisition about them, under the title of ' An Account of some re- 

 markable antient Ituins lately discovered in the Highlands and 

 Northern Part* of Scotland : In a Series of [IS] Letters to O. C. M., 

 Eaq,' ova. Edinburgh. Williams gave these piles the name of vitrified 

 fort*, unhesitatingly assuming that they were artificial structures. 

 Nevertheless the idea, that the so-called forts were of volcanic origin, 

 which had been previously held by Scottish writers, was soon after 

 started anew by Pennant, who had seen one of them, and was taken up 

 by other speculators ; in particular it was attempted to be established 

 by the Hon. Daines Harrington, in a pajttr read before the Society of 

 Antiquaries in 1781, and published in the sixth volume of the 'Archroo- 

 logia the following year. But this notion may be said to be now given 

 up on all hands. The subject has also bean discussed by Or. James 

 Anderson and other writers in the ' Arotuoologia ' the ' Memoirs of the 

 Wernerian Society, 1 the ' Transactions of the Ron! Society of Soot 

 land/ the ' Statistical Account of Scotland,' and of late years at some 

 length by Dr. John Macculloch in the ' Transactions of the Geological 

 Society of London,' and in hU ' Highland* and Western Isles of Hoot- 

 land ;' by Dr. fiibbert, as the result of a series of inquiries set on font 

 by the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, and published in the fourth 

 volume of their ' Transactions,' and by Mr. D. Wilson, in his ' Arohseo- 

 logy of Scotland.' 



The original description of the general natura of the vitrified fort* 

 liven by Williams has nut been corrected or contradicted in any 

 material point by subsequent observers. And hU views were supported 

 at the time, on chemical and other considerations, by Dr. Black, and 

 also by James Watt, who (apparently before the subject had attracted 

 the attention of Williams) had personally and carefully examined the 

 same fort (that on the hill of Craig Phaidrick, or Craig Patrick, near 

 Inverness) which Pennant had hastily inspected. A descripti >n : thi- 

 fort by Watt and a letter from Black are subjoined to Williams's 

 account. 



Every vitrified fort Williams had Men was situated on the top of a 

 amall lull, overlooking and commanding a surrounding valley or 

 always having at the summit a level area of greater or leu extent, ami 

 for the moat part inaccessible or very steep, at least on on 

 Indeed, he asserts that the hills are always difficult of access, ex. 

 one place, which has everywhere been strengthened by additional 

 works, of which he gives a description. What is called the fort consists 

 of a wall enclosing the level summit, generally, in part at least, rectili- 

 neal and rectangular, but sometimes having one or more of the sides 

 curved to suit the shape of the area. Exterior to this is sometimes a 

 second circumvolution, which in some instances approaches within a 

 few yards of the first, in others is removed from it to a oonsiderabln 

 distance; but this outer enclosure is merely constructed of loose 

 blocks of stone ; it U the inner wall only which is entirely or pirtially 

 vitrified. Williams's account is, that the materials have been " run and 

 compacted together by the force of fire ; and that so effectually, that 

 most of the stones have been melted down ; and any part of the atones 

 not quite run to glass has been entirely enveloped by the v, 

 matter ; and in some places the vitrification has been so complete, that 

 the ruins appear now like vast masses or fragments of coarse ghis* or 

 slags." Generally, however, it would appear that the vitrificat 

 not so complete as this description would seem to imply, though it 

 may be sufficiently applicable to the more perfect apt 

 oases the fire has only given the wall a coating of glass ; in some, only 

 one side of the wall is vitrified. The walU appear to be, in almost all 

 the forte that have been examined, partially thrown dawn ; in some, 

 " the vitrified ruins," Williams states, " are nearly all grown over with 

 heath and grass, and often appear at first sight like the ruins of some 

 earth or sod buildings:" from the instances in which the structure 

 seems to be the most entire, it may be conjectured that its original 

 height was commonly about twelve feet 



Above fifty of these vitrified forte in all have been found, dispersed 

 over the shires of Inverness (in which they are most numerous), Itoas, 

 Croumrty, Banff, Moray, Argyle, Aberdeen, Perth, Korfar, Kincardine, 

 and Bute. Two or three have also been discovered in the southern 

 counties of Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Berwick. The most eel. 

 are that on the hill of Knookfarril, or Knookfarril na Phian, that is, 

 the Place of Fingal on Knockfarril, on the south side of the valley of 

 Strath petfer, two miles to tho west of Dingtvall in Ross-shire ; that, 

 already mentioned, on the hill of Craig Phaidrick. two miles west of 

 Inverness ; that on the hill of Noth, in Aberdeenshire ; that on Dun 

 Mai'Sniochain, in Argyleshire ; that on tho hill of Dunadeer, in Abor- 

 deenahire; that near Creieh, in Sutherland; that near the chun h f 

 Amwoth, in Kirkcudbright ; that on the hill of Dunskeig, at the 

 entrance of Loch Tarbert, in Argyllshire ; that on the castle hill of 

 Finhaven, four miles to the east of the town of Korfar ; that on the 

 hill of Laws, near the village of Drumsturdymuir, a few miles to the 

 north-east of Dundee ; that at the entrance of the bay of Carradule, in 

 Contyre; that in the parish of Kingorth, in the Isle of Bute; that 

 (very slightly vitrified) on Barryhill, in the parish of Meigle, Perth- 

 shire ; those on Castle Finlay and Dunuvan, iu Nairnshlre ; that called 

 Tordun Castle, about three miles from Fort Augustus; that on th>- 

 west side of Gleneves, in Lochaber, about three miles south from Fort 

 William. 



Betting oxide the theory of the volcanic or otherwise accidental 

 origin of the vitrified forts, which appears to be untenable, seeing that 

 they are manifestly artificial structures, we have still two suppo- 

 between which to choose in accounting for the appearance thuy present. 

 Tho vitrification may have been part of the process of their erection, 

 and designed as a substitute for the ordinary cement ; or it in 

 been the result of accident afterwards. The latter view was suggested 

 by Lord Woodhouseleo no early as 1783, and h;w since, been sup] 

 by Dr. Ilibbert and Sir (ieorge Mackenzie ; the former, which was that 

 taken by Williams and other early investigator*, bos been ably di t 

 in recent time* by the late Dr. John Maocullooh. It is imposui i 

 us here to enter at length into the considerations which have been 

 advanced on both sides: they amount f..r the most part to but slight 

 and unsatisfactory probabilities. Dr. Hibbert's notion is th.a the in 

 closures were intended for the protection of beacon fires; and 1 

 endeavoured to show that the elevations on which they are 

 are so ohoeen as that one of these signals could always be seen 

 from another. His views are adopted by Mr. Wilson in hU valuable 

 ' Archaeology uf Scotland,' before referred to. Dr. Macculloch on the 

 other hand, maintains that this is not tho fact. Besides, he nl 

 that the extent of most of the cnclonures. is far beyond whnt 

 have been required for any beacon fire : the area of that at Amwi'th, 

 for instance, is not less than 3700 square yards. How also, it it asked, 

 should it have happened, as is generally the case, that the walls should 



