FreLtp MEETINGS. 203 
lunch by Colonel Kennedy, and Provost Arnott of Maxwell- 
town called upon the members to accord him a hearty vote of 
thanks for his kindness and the trouble he had taken to make 
the excursion a success. 
Burial Cairns of the Bronze Age. 
The visitors then proceeded to their final objective. 
Passing Milton Park Lodge, and crossing the Ken they pro- 
ceeded up the Polharrow Burn, through the Forest of Buchan, 
and passing Knocknalling they stopped at Knockreoch. 
These lands had been in the possession of Colonel Kennedy’s 
family for over 4oo years. Gilbert Kennedy, second Laird of 
Bargany, infefted ‘* his well belovyt brother, Johne,’’ in them 
on 17th October, 1476. It was to visit certain tumuli noticed 
by Colonel Kennedy on Knockreoch that the excursion was 
planned, and Colonel Kennedy, on a horse, led the way over 
the hills. After a mile or so the Colonel pointed out various 
heaps of loose boulders, roughly circular and placed, it seemed, 
in irregular lines; farther on a large tumuli was reached, and 
climbing the opposing hill slope another and still more exten- 
sive group of these structures was found. Mr G. H. P. 
Watson had no difficulty in pronouncing the structures to be 
burial cairns of the Bronze or early Iron Age, usually 
associated with hut circles, for these people seemed to live 
beside their tombs, or rather bury beside their dwellings. Only 
one or two of the 60 or 70 tumuli seen appeared, however, to 
have been the remains of huts. Archeology has not yet re- 
vealed much concerning the inhabitants of these huts and 
graves. With them are associated stone circles and cup and 
ring marks, of which so many examples exist in Galloway. 
Every indication showed that they were not the same as the 
supposedly earlier people who buried their dead in great 
chambered cairns, which were constructed with an entrance, 
and in which repeated interments took place. These smaller 
tumuli usually contain one burial, and there may be found cists 
or earthen vases containing burned bones. The conditions of 
life of such a people were freely discussed, Mr G. F. Scott- 
Elliot strongly contending that the whole land would then be 
forest, and these early inhabitants hunters living on the 
