158 REPORT 1871. 



tlie Norsemen invaded the islands in the ninth century. The last class received from 

 the Norsemen the name of "Hoi," or gravemouud (now called "Howe"), and 

 the former, in which the structures were still visible, were known as "Bjorgs" 

 (" Broughs "). So far as has yet been ascertained, the discovery of iron implements 

 has been limited to the ruins known as "Broughs," which appear to have been 

 known to, and in some cases occupied by, the Norsemen. The moimds which bear 

 the name of " Howe," and have, when opened, been found to conceal the remains 

 of "Broughs," have yielded only stone, bone, and a few bronze relics. Mr. Petrio 

 referred to one of those moimds near Kirkwall, in which he lately found Roman 

 silver coins of the Emperors Vespasian, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. 



Details were given of various barrows and kists and of their contents, and the 

 descriptions were illustrated by diagi-ams. 



On an Expedition for tlie Special Investigation of tlie Hebrides and West 

 Highlands, in search of Evidences of Ancient Serpent-Worship. By 

 John S. Phen^:, F.O.S., F.B.G.S., Memher of the British Archceological 

 Association. 



The author commenced by stating that he felt bound to give the grounds for his 

 assertion, made at the last Meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, that 

 he had met with evidences of sei-pent-mounds and constiaictions identical with 

 those of Ohio and Wisconsin. 



Impressed with the idea that if serpent-worship had been a feature in the early 

 religion of these lands some evidences must still remain, he organized a party for 

 searching such localities in the Hebrides and West Highlands as had not been ex- 

 amined with that object, nor had come under the attention of the theorists for 

 serpent- worship, such as Dr. Stukeley and Sir R. C. Hoare ; the party wasimbiassed, 

 and former theories strictly avoided. It became purely a matter of survey of exist- 

 ing relics that was undertaken. 



The paper was very fully illustrated by diagrams, and the author first drew at- 

 tention to one representing three outlines of animal forms, two being earthen 

 moimds, taken from the elaborate surveys in Wisconsin by J. A. Lapham, Esq., 

 and the third the stone foimdation of a " bo'li " in South Uist, in a work by Capt. 

 F. L. W. Thomas, R.N. Thou^gh the purposes and materials were different, the 

 designs clearly demonstrated the fact that the early inhabitants of Britain and 

 America made constructions in the forms of animals. From this he proceeded to 

 the earliest pottery, and by his diagrams showed the great similarity between that 

 of the earliest British and American, from a sepulchral urn in the Ashmolean 

 Museum, Oxford, and one taken from a movmd at Racine, on Lake Michigan, by 

 Dr. P. R. Hoy, with a similar specimen obtained from Berigonium, and which was 

 on the table. Instances also of cremative burial, and of whole skeletons in the 

 sitting posture, in both countries, clearly indicated a unity of custom. Having, 

 he thought, established these points, he proceeded to trace the com-se of serpent- 

 worship from the east; he related some of his own experiences of that worship in 

 India, followed it through Egypt to Greece, pointing out that some of the myths 

 covered its struggles with the more intellectual religion of that country, as the" de- 

 struction of the Python by Apollo, the strangling of serpents by Hercules, and the 

 relapse of Laocoon and his two sons into the gTOsser rites, and their consequent 



Eunishment. Having traced the spread of this worship and its course westward, 

 e next drew special attention to the construcrion of earthen mounds and tumuli 

 in America and Britain : he quoted from Messrs. Lapham and Squier's surveys, 

 that natural mounds were adapted artificially to peculiar pui-poses ; at Lapham's 

 Peak three artificial momids were found, of stone and eartli, on the lofty summit ; 

 the material had been conveyed by gi-eat labour ; the hill on which the " Great 

 Serpent Mound " of Mr. Squier is placed had been " cut out, evidently to adapt it 

 to the form desired to be constructed.'" In the ' Annals of Cambridge ' a tumulus 

 in the Gogmagog Hills was fomied by layers of different soils, each totally unlike 

 the soil of the neighbourhood, and brought by great labour fi-om remote distances. 

 The Castle Hill at Cambridge is a British tumulus raised on a preexisting natural 



