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would do no discredit to our best modern cabinet-makers. It 

 is turned in oak, and hooped with brass, four and a half inches 

 high, and four inches diameter. There were originally a pair, 

 but one was unfortunately broken. 



" The purpose for which such a structure may have been 

 made is altogether matter of conjecture, as no reference to 

 such is made in any of our annals. Some have thought that 

 they were places of sepulture, and the bones those of the vic- 

 tims offered at the entombment of some powerful chief; but a 

 friend has suggested that such could not be the case : first, be- 

 cause that at such a ceremony, the custom was an holocaust, 

 in which the animals would be consumed en masse ; and, se- 

 condly, he knows of no instance of wild animals, like deer, cap- 

 tured in the chase, being so offered ; but he then suggests, 

 that these islands, inaccessible when the boats were secured, 

 might not have been unacceptable retreats to the instruments 

 of feudal tyranny, or to petty chieftains who lived by border 

 robbery; and that, in the course of years, the bones thrown over 

 the side by the little garrison might have accumulated to the 

 extent of what have been found ; and the pins and other articles 

 of that date found along with them may well have been drop- 

 ped in the carelessness of such vagrant life, whilst the rough 

 culinary arrangements of former days might account for the 

 burned earth. But it is a curious matter if such were the 

 case, and I am inclined to deem it not far from the fact, that, 

 amongst the numerous pins found, scarce any two are critically 

 alike. 



" He then goes on to suggest that, in later times, the island 

 that had afforded a fastness to predatory chiefs might have 

 become the residence of the artisan ; and, combining the fact 

 of the proximity of the ruined church, that such artisans might 

 well have united the clerical and laical characters, and been 

 monks, labouring at the smithy, the turning-lathe, or the foun- 

 dry ; and that this woidd account for the bones, horn, and iron 

 articles of more recent date. The horn discs discovered may have 



