128 White Quartz Pebbles. 



the same race as that inhabiting Galloway spread over the 

 whole of Ireland, there have been found in nearly every Stone 

 Age interment, fragments of white, smooth water-worn 

 quartz pebbles, and the fact serves to identify the remains as- 

 belonging to a very ancient period of interment.* In Lag- 

 my-Boiragh, Isle of Man, there was found a circle of eighteen 

 graves arranged in sets of three. Remains of cinerary urns 

 were discovered in them. About two feet from the surface 

 was the floor of the graves, composed of flat slabs of various 

 sizes, and under these slabs were found the broken urns,, 

 charcoal fragments, bones, black oily earth, several flint arrow 

 heads, scrapers, knives, etc. Near the floor of the grave 

 was found also a number of rounded white quartz stones 

 evidently brought from the sea-shoref It has been stated 

 elsewhere that the fishermen in the Isle of Man have a strong 

 prejudice against having a white stone in a fishing boat, even 

 as ballast. Sir John Rhys thinks it probable that as the 

 Manx folk once decorated their graves with white stones,, 

 the feeling of repugnance is so far accounted for. This 

 custom is also mentioned by the Rev. Walter Gregor as being 

 usual with fishermen on the North East Coast of Scotland. 

 In the South West of Scotland, a custom quite the reverse 

 from this prevails among the fishermen in the Kirkmaiden 

 district. Mull of Galloway. To ensure luck at the fishing 

 they carry white stones in their boats. J In some notes on. 

 Barrows of Derbyshire by Mr Rooke-Pennington in 1877,, 

 he thinks that no reasonable man can doubt the practice of 

 depositing articles of value in graves has some sort of religi- 

 ous foundation, and that these white quartz pebbles were 

 looked upon with feelings of reverence. A great quantity of 

 white quartz pebbles were found in 1883 in various old tombs 

 in the Isle of Curabrae, also they were found in most of the 

 old graves excavated about that time in the neighbourhood 



* " Rude Stone Monuments of Sligo." Archceological Review^ 

 August, 1899, p. 379. 



t Beport of the British Association, Nottingham, 1893,, 

 Section H, p. 902. 



X Rev. Walter Gregor. Beport to British Association, 1897, 

 p. 487. 



