12 ION A. ANTIQUITIES. 



notice the buildings appertaining to the Nunnery or the 

 Abbey, since they are mere ruins, neither presenting any 

 interest, nor affording any elucidation with respect to 

 their dates. Granite, found on the opposite shore of Mull, 

 gneiss, hornblende slate, and clay slate, the produce of 

 the island itself, enter conjointly into these structures ; 

 the roofs having been covered with mica slate, and the 

 carved ornaments of the interior executed in sand-stone, 

 brought, possibly, from Gribon in Mull. 



It is impossible, as I have already said, to form any 

 conjecture respecting the unsculptured grave stones, or 

 even about those which are rudely sculptured ~and bear no 

 inscription. Tradition is on this subject of no value. It 

 is sufficient to remark, that one of the earliest actually 

 bearing a date, is the tomb of Lachlan M'Kinnon, in 1489. 

 That of the Abbot M'Kinnon, which is in the choir of the 

 cathedral, is of 1500; that of the Prioress Anna, of 1511. 

 These inscriptions are in the Saxon character. There are 

 also some traces of inscriptions in the Gaelic alphabet to 

 be seen, but undated. It is perhaps incumbent on a 

 mineralogist to state, that the Abbot M'Kinnon's tomb 

 is neither formed of black marble, nor basalt, both of 

 which have been asserted by different observers ; but of a 

 micaceous schist, with a mixture of hornblende. The 

 botanist must also be told that the Byssus lolithus does 

 not grow on this tomb, as mentioned by Lightfoot, but 

 on that of the Abbot Kenneth opposite, one of the 

 Mackenzies of Seaforth. The sculptures on the best of 

 these are but indifferent, if we except those that consist 

 of mere tracery ; in which we are often at a loss whether 

 most to admire the persevering intricacy of the designs, 

 or the refractory nature of the material in which they have 

 been executed, which is, I believe invariably, mica slate. 

 Swords, ships, and armorial bearings, with ill executed 

 bass reliefs of warriors, form the chief objects of the 

 others. The ships are the most interesting, as serving 

 to give us an idea of the knowledge which these islanders 



