374 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 



which I was only able to be present on a very few occasions, I owe 

 a large debt. 



Swell i. — The first of the three barrows examined is situated in 

 a field which has been under cultivation from twenty-seven to 

 thirty years, though it is still known as the ' Cow Common.' The 

 other two barrows were found by us in 1874 to have the heart- 

 shaped or ' horned ' eastward ends, which are so well known to us 

 from Dr. Anderson's 2 descriptions of the { horned cairns of Caith- 

 ness/ as also from Dr. Thurnam's 2 accounts of the tumuli at Uley 

 and Belas Knap, in this very county of Gloucester. There is, 

 as it appears to me, a great probability that the barrow, Swell i., 

 was originally constructed with the same outlines and contour as 

 these other barrows ; but the eastward end had been much reduced 

 in size by removal of the stones of which it was made up, to fill up 

 an adjacent quarry, in the years 1867-1868; and in 1874 some 

 indistinct traditions as to the existence in former years of curved 

 walling at that end were the only main specific basis — as distinct 

 from the general likelihood arising out of its other still remaining 

 points of resemblance to typical horned barrows — for holding that 

 it probably had been one. Making allowances, however, for the 

 demolitions which had taken place in the years 1867 and 1868, and, 

 possibly enough, in years long before them, we shall not be far 

 wrong in saying that the extreme length of the barrow from 

 E.S.E. to W.N.W., the direction of its long axis, was from 

 150 to 155 feet ; and that its breadth at its eastward end was J J 

 feet ; at its highest point, a point very near to the line occupied by 

 the chamber which, as will be seen, gives the chief interest to the 

 barrow, 69 feet; and at its westward end, 40 feet. The greatest 

 height of the barrow, as at present existing, is about 5 feet. The 

 ground occupied by the barrow falls slightly from the west east- 

 wards. 



In 1867, and previously to the removal of the eastward end, the 

 Eev. David Royce discovered in the barrow a chamber of about 

 3 feet square, as reported, but probably of even smaller dimen- 

 sions, with a gallery or passage leading down to it at a point 



1 See Anderson, • Ancient Remains of Caithness ; ' ' Mem. Soc. Anth. Lond.,' vol. i. 

 p. 474, 1865 ; 'Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland,' 1866-1868. 



2 See Thurnam, 'Crania Britannica,' PL v; ' Mem. Soc. Anth. Lond.,' 1865; 

 * Archaeologia/ vol. xlii. p. 209. 



