White Quartz Pebbles. 125 



examination of a large chambered cairn on Largie Karni, and 

 found in the South compartment great numbers of (juartz 

 pebbles purposely broken, and he says: — " The number of 

 quartz pebbles purposely broken was very great, and they 

 must have been placed there with some intention. <';nd were 

 probably possessed of a symbolical meaning." Four miles 

 from Inveraray, at t'.ie village of Ach-na-goul, there is a large 

 oval-formed cairn 130 feet long by 30 feet broad. 'I his 



sepulchral tumulus gives the name to the place — Ach-na-goul 

 — the field of the Gauls to bury in. The burials there were 

 in rows lengthwise and in cists, and excavation laid bare 

 chimbers and passages 70 feet long from North to South. 

 In some cists charcoal was found, an evidence of cremation, 

 and in the eastern chamber there was no sign of burial, as if 

 it had been set apart for religious rites. In one of the 

 chambers a conical stone of white quartz was found exactly 

 like one described by Mr Phene at Letcombe Castle, Berks, 

 while another example was found at Maiden Casrle, near 

 Weymouth, each in connexion with human remains.* 



At Inveraray there is an old burial-ground called Kil- 

 mahew or Kilmaduff. Eight graves there had white quartz 

 pebbles on them varying in size from a walnut to that of the 

 fist, eight to twelve in number, some water-worn or rounded. 

 They were placed irregularly in groups on the grave itself, 

 or in a line along the bottom of the stone at the head of the 

 grave. An old fisherman said that as long as he could 

 remember it was a custom in Inveraray to place white stones 

 on the graves of friends. He did not know if it pertained 

 in other districts, and he did not think it was done with any 

 definite meaning. It was just a practice. Sir Arthur 

 Mitchell heard that this old man's daughter had put white 

 stones on the grave of her mother, and he asks, " For what 

 reason could these stones have been put in graves or in 

 urns?" 



He suggests firstly that perhaps it was because they 

 looked pretty, and secondly that a possible symbolism may 

 easily be imagined. For instance, from the fact that a spark 



* Rev. A. Scott, Celtx and Druids, 1897, p. 107. 



