222 ANCIENT REMAINS IN ARRAN. 



cist, as well in the case of the pillared stones and granite 

 circles at Tormore, as of the singular little cist, with its four 

 encircling blocks, at the summit-level of the Lamlash road. 

 The limited total area of the circles is no objection to this 

 conclusion, as we know that the sites of many circles, which 

 have existed to a late time, are not now to be found. The 

 circles may have been applied later to other purposes, as of 

 worship, of judicial combat, or of meeting on great public 

 occasions, while intended in the first instance by their con- 

 structors as sepulchral monuments, marking off the sacred 

 precincts where lay the ashes or bones of the dead. The 

 reasoning, it is true, might be reversed, and it might be 

 argued that the circles were reared for religious or judicial 

 purposes, and afterwards adopted for sepulture, as venerated 

 places. But it would, of course, be necessary to produce the 

 evidence for such an original purpose, in order to do away 

 with the foi'ce of that here given. This, however, has yet to 

 be done. Antiquai-ians have too often recourse to hypotheses 

 which are far-fetched, and with which the wonderful, the 

 grand, and the terrible are associated, while simple natural 

 explanations are overlooked or rejected. A Druidical origin 

 has been assigned to these works; but there is no evidence 

 that the Druidical priests, or the rites of that worship, had 

 at any time a footing in Scotland. As regards the south of 

 England, Brittany, and other districts where remains con- 

 sidered to be truly Druidical exist, the soundness of the 

 mode of reasoning just indicated would be tested by a careful 

 examination inside the circles, on the plan described in the 

 foregoing account. To what extent such an examination 

 may have been made, I am unable to state; within Stoiie- 

 henge, one trial has, I believe, failed to discover any human 

 remains. Such are, howevei-, found abundantly in the 

 barrows and other earthworks on the adjoining plain. 



