55.0 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



found a few small stones, two of granite and one of limestone ; one of 

 the granite stones was polished on one side. Although a pump was 

 constantly at work, the water which leaked in from the sides of the 

 trench gained on us rapidly ; and it was evident that a greater depth 

 could not he reached without considerahle difficulty, so I was reluct- 

 antly compelled to ahandon this trench. 



• The nest excavation was made about 30 yards north of the fij'st 

 trench, and on the same side of the drain, but a little further from it 

 (fig. 2, cl). The section of this cutting closely resembled that of 

 trench a. The peat was a little deeper, and contained a large log of 

 wood in a horizontal position, probably a portion of the stem of a pine- 

 tree of considerable size. At the north end the stony bottom was reached 

 at a depth of only 4 feet ; it dipped towards the southern end, where it 

 was about 5 feet from the surface. The northern half of this trench did 

 not contain a single fragment of bone or horn ; the southern half was 

 literally packed with them. The antlers were all very much broken, 

 and fragments of horn were numerous ; but the smaller bones of the 

 skeleton were not as numerous here as in trench a. By continuing 

 the excavation in a southerly direction, I should certainly have 

 obtained a large number of heads, but there appeared to be little 

 prospect of gaining additional information by such a course. 



There can be little doubt that the trenches a and cl occupy a posi- 

 tion corresponding with the margin of the lake or tarn which once 

 stretched along the bottom of the glen ; while the trench c, where we 

 failed to reach the bottom, and found no bones, must have been near 

 the centre of the tarn. Judging from the general appearance of the 

 surface, I concluded that the opposite margin of the supposed tarn 

 must have been situated about the place marked e, fig. 2 ; and 

 considering it important to learn if bones also abounded there, I 

 decided upon exploring this part of the bog. A few yards to the west 

 of this spot the ground suddenly rises several feet, and then, after a 

 gentle slope of about 50 yards, there is another sudden rise, as we 

 reach the high ground fonning the southern end of the hill, which 

 flanks the west side of the glen : the hill on the east side of the glen 

 is not so high. In other respects the two sides are not dissimilar. 

 As might be expected, the results of this cutting closely corresponded 

 with those obtained in trench a. The strata passed through, however, 

 were more conformable to those of trench c, the chief difference being 

 in the thickness of each stratum, as may be seen from the section 

 {e, fig. 1), which needs no further explanation. The stony bottom 

 of this trench was so even and regular, that it presented the appear- 

 ance of a pavement. It dipped towards the east about as much as the 

 bottom of trench a did to the west. The remains found here were 

 about the same in point of numbers as those of trench a, but they were 

 in a very much worse state of preservation ; indeed, several antlers 

 were not removed, as it was found impossible to disturb them without 

 breaking them into fragments. It was in this trench that most of the 

 ribs and jaw-bones were found. At the southern end of it, a log of 



