124 White Quartz Pebbles. 



He says : — " Most of the fifteen described are in the National 

 Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh, No. 6 was 29 inches 

 deep, inverted on a rough stone underneath, it covered many 

 <:alcined bones mixed with black ashes ; three small pebbles, 

 two of them quartz, may have got accidentally mixed with 

 the bones and ashes, but I sent them to the Museum and. 

 recorded their presence in my notes read before the Society, 

 of Antiquaries of Scotland, because small pebbles are wor- 

 shipped in India and the Figi Islands, and they appear to 

 have been worshipped in Palestine long ago : — Isaiah 57, 

 V. 6. ' Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy 

 portion, they, they are thy lot : even to them hast thou poured 

 a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering.' 



Since I made that observation I have seen another inter- 

 ment where the presence of white quartz pebbles could not 

 be accidental."* 



Sir Arthur Mitchell expressed the same opinion as Mr 

 Wilson in his paper, " On the occurrence of white' pebbles 

 in graves of the Stone and Bronze Age."t 



When a cairn was opened at Ach-na-Cree, on entering 

 the innermost chamber, the first thing that struck the eye was 

 a row of quartz pebbles, larger than a walnut, arranged on 

 the ledge of the lower granite block on the east side. Dr R. 

 Angus Smith describes them thus : — " When we looked into 

 the dark chamber from the outside they shone as if illumin- 

 ated, showing how clean they had remained." In the loose 

 soil above the natural surface of the ground there was an urn 

 with a white pebble in it like those just referred to. In the 

 outermost of the three chambers in this cairn there were also 

 found six white quartz pebbles, arranged on a ledge, four in 

 one part, and two a little separate, and in the urn found in 

 the chamber, were three white pebbles. | 



Near Crinan, in 1865, Canon Greenwell made a careful 



Archeological and Historical Collections Belating to Ayrshire 

 and Galloway, 1889, Vol. VI., p. 92. 



t Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol. ■ 

 18, p. 286. 



t " Descriptive List of Antiquities near Loch Etive." Trans. 

 Soc. Antiq. of Scot., Vol. IX., p. 412-4. 



