White Quartz Pebbles, l'2iJ 



and there are more of them in this belt than one could find in 

 a whole day's walk along the sands. Perhaps this belt of 

 gravel represents a ring of bigger stones, for no large stones 

 are to be found within a distance of more than a mile, and 

 that across the River Piltanton. The contents of both urns 

 were very interesting, and consisted of black ashes, mixed 

 with calcined bones adhering closely to the bottom and sides. 

 Upon and in the moss there were lying close together a little 

 heap of water-worn white quartz pebbles about the size of a 

 pigeon's egg. That part of the find seems to give a little 

 confirmation connected with my finding of three small pebbles 

 under the Bankfield urn."* 



Last August an account was given in the newspapers of 

 a pre-historic find at Burgie near Forres, consisting of well- 

 preserved human remains in a Short Cist, by Mr C. M. Bruce 

 of Burgie Lodge Farm, which on scientific examination by 

 Professor Reid of Aberdeen and others, was estimated to be 

 from 4006 to 5000 years old. Seeing that pebbles had been 

 discovered in the cist, the find became doubly interesting to 

 me, and I wrote to Mr Bruce asking him if he would kindly 

 tell me the colour of the pebbles and how they were distri- 

 buted. I received a very kind answer to my letter, in which 

 he told me that " the pebbles were studded throughout the 

 entire bed of the cist rather openly. They seem just to have 

 been pushed into the fine sand, but not buried in it. They 

 were closer together under the head of the skeleton, almost 

 touching each other. The pebbles were common to the upper 

 deposit in which the cist lay. Many of them are felspathic^ 

 few granite, few quartzite, fewer brown yellowish quartz. 

 Below the head were a few white quartz pebbles brought 

 presumably from the .sea-side four or five miles distant. The 

 white quartz were small, about the size of pigeons' to hens' 



eggs." 



We have here an example of the white quartz pebbles in 

 a cist with a skeleton, and numerous other instances will be 

 pointed out later on. But we must return to the Rev. George 

 Wilson's account of the urns found in the Torrs sand-hills. 



* Archd'ological and Hixtorical Collections Relating to Ayrshire 

 and (inlloxcay. Vol. VI.. p. 94. 



