367 



differing both in pattern and method by which they were formed from 

 those in common use now. The pots opened at Mana Madura dis- 

 closed bones mixed in with the soil that had worked in, and, in one 

 case, the remains of a skull held in a saucer-like dish. In those opened 

 at Periakulam have also been found bones in a good state of preserva- 

 tion, — part of a jaw with teeth of an old person, and part of a skull, 

 not found, however, in any cup. The number and variety of patterns 

 of vessels found at Periakulam was beyond that of those exhumed at 

 Mana Madura ; but some of the same style were also found. Two kinds 

 of pottery-work have been found in the latter place, whose object is 

 doubtful ; and accordingly I will sketch an outline of them. 



No. 6 * was found at Mana Madura of different sizes ; and in one or 

 two cairns a small vessel was placed upon it. It appears to be a stand, 

 as there is an opening through it ; but, in a cairn opened to-day. No. 3 

 was found as if just fallen off the other. Mr. Capron will perhaps rec- 

 ognize No. 3 as a whole specimen, the top of which we found at Mana 

 Madura. The base is hollowed out, and there is a small orifice through 

 the neck. At Periakulam, pieces of iron have been found in the cairns. 

 One which I have is much eaten by rust, and appears to be a rough 

 knife-blade seven inches long. At Mana Madura, many vessels were 

 found arranged around some of the cairns, embedded in the soil. One 

 cairn at Periakulam has a thick stone as cover. No other cover has 

 yet been found.f 



Barrows, cromlechs, and cairns are related to each other, as the 

 above facts prove. The same people constructed all three. They lived 

 on the hills as well as on the plains. Their pottery was finer than 

 that made in the same localities now. Their customs of interment 

 differed from those common now. It is somewhat singular that the 

 common talk respecting these remains should be identical in places so 

 remote from each other as ManS, Madura and Periakulam. 



Pi'of. Daniel Wilson remarked that a distinction should be made be- 

 tween the cromlech and the megalithic cyst, to which latter class the 

 structures described properly belonged : the former being applied par- 

 ticularly to those rude structures of stone built above the excavated 

 chambers in which the remains of the dead were interred ; and the lat- 

 ter to similar structures, in which themselves, the bodies, were placed, 

 and the whole buried beneath a mound of eailh. The pottery exhib- 

 ited was of a much more elegant pattern and delicate workmanship 

 than that discovered in similar structures in the north of Europe ; while 

 one piece, exhibiting a distinct lip, reminded him somewhat of the 

 Saxon pottery of the sixth and seventh centuries. 



* The numbers as given here refer to the figures on p. 361. 



t Mr. Capron speaks of covers to the urns, and draws one of them as repre- 

 sented in fig. 1 : his other figure, of the narrow-mouthed jar, was coverless. 



