Ot aR eke aN yt SBE og 2 XXXV 
Tn the ifle of Unf are two fingular circles, near each other. The largeft is fifty Serurcurar 
feet in diameter, to the outmoft ring; for it confifts of three, concentrical ; the Se a 
outmoft is formed of {mall ftones, the two inner of earth ; through all of which is a 
fingle narrow entrance to a tumulus which rifes in the centre. The other circle is 
only twenty-two feet in diameter, and has only two rings, formed of earth: in the 
centre is a barrow, the fides of which are fenced with ftones. No marks of their 
having been places of interment have been found, yet moft probably that was 
their ufe. 
The links or fands of Skail, in Sandwich, one of the Orknies, abound in round Barrows: 
barrows. Some are formed of earth alone, others of ftone covered with earth. 
In the former-was found a coffin, made of fix flat ftones. They are too fhort to 
receive a body at full length: the fkeletons found in them lie with the knees 
prefled to the breaft, and the legs doubled along the thighs. A bag, made of 
rufhes, has been found at the feet of fome of thefe fkeletons, containing the bones, 
moft probably, of another of the family. In one were to be feen multitudes of 
fmall beetles. Whether they were placed there by defign, or lodged there by acci- 
dent, I will not determine; but, as I have difcovered fimilar infects in the bag 
which inclofed the facred bis, we may fuppofe that the Egyptians, and the nation 
to whom thefe tumuli did belong, might have had the fame fuperftition refpecting 
them. On fome of the corpfes interred in this ifland, the mode of burning was 
obferved. ‘The afhes, depofited in an urn which was covered on the top with a 
flat ftone, have been found in the cell of one of the barrows. ‘This coffin or cel} 
was placed on the ground, then covered with a heap of f{tones, and that again 
cafed with earth and fods. Both barrow and contents evince them to be of a dif- 
ferent age from the former. “Thefe tumuli were in the nature of family vaults : 
in them have been found two tiers of coffins *. Itis probable, that on the death of 
any one of the family, the tumulus was opened, and the body interred near its 
kindred bones. 
The violence of the winds have, by blowing away the fands in a certain part of Graves o¥ 
Weftra, one of the Schetlands, difcovered an extenfive burying-place, once covered WEsTaa. 
with the thicknefs of twenty feet. This feems to have belonged to different na- 
tions. One is marked by the tumuli confifting of ftones and rubbifh; fome 
rounded, others flat at top like truncated cones. Near them are multitudes of 
graves, which are difcoverable only by one, two, three, four, and fometimes even 
more fhort upright ftones, fet in the level fand. The corpfe was interred a few 
feet deep, and covered with a layer of fine clay, to keep the fand from touching it. 
CracuLar. 
, 
* See Mr, Lows account, and plate, Archaologia, iii. 276. tab. xiii, 
e 2 Not 
