MONUMENTAL REMAINS. 567 



The cromlech is usually found open at the sides ; if it be in. 

 closed, so as to form a kind of rude coffin or sarcophagus, it is 

 called a Kist.vuen. 



BARROWS. 



Of these Dr. Plott takes notice of two sorts in Oxfordshire ; 

 one placed on the military ways, the other in the fields, meadows, 

 or woods ; the first fort doubtless of Roman erection, the other 

 more probably erected by the Britons or Danes. We have an 

 examination of the barrows in Cornwall by Dr. Williams, in the 

 Phil. Trans. N 458, from whose observations we find that they 

 are composed of foreign or adventitious earth ; that is, such as does 

 not originally belong to the place, but is fetched from some distance. 

 Monuments of this kind are also very frequent in Scotland. On, 

 digging into the barrows, urns have been found in some of them, 

 made of calcined earth, and containing burnt bones and ashes; in 

 others, stone chests containing bones entire; in others, bones nei. 

 ther lodged in chests nor deposited in urns. These tumuli are 

 round, not greatly elevated, and generally at their bases surrounded 

 with a foss. They are of different sizes ; in proportion, it is sup. 

 posed, to the greatness, rank, and power, of the deceased person. 

 The links or sands of Skail, in Sandwich, one of the Orkneys, 

 abound in round barrows. Some are formed of earth alone, others 

 of stone covered with earth. In the former was found a coffin, 

 made of six flat stones. They are too short to receive a body at 

 full length : the skeletons found in them lie with the knees pressed 

 to the breast, and the legs doubled along the thighs. A bag, 

 made of rushes, has been found at the feet of some of these skele- 

 tons, containing the bones, most probab'y, of another of the fa. 

 mil y. In one were to be seen multitudes of small beetles ; and as 

 similar insects have been discovered in the bag which enclosed the 

 sacred Ibis^ we may suppose that the Egyptians, and the nation to 

 whom these tumuli belong, might have had the same superstition 

 respecting them. On some of the corpses interred in this island) 

 the mode of burning was observed. The asbes deposited in the 

 urn which was covered on the top with a flat stone, have been 

 found iu the cell of one of the barrows. This coflin or cell was 

 placed on the ground, then covered with a heap of stones, and 

 that again cased with earth and sods. Both barrow and contents 

 evince them to be of a different age from the former. These tu. 

 muli were in (he nature of family vaults : in them hare been found 



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