I>[otes on Yarrow. By James Hardy. 405 



Currie is contained in tlie following extracts from Dr. Smith's 

 first paper. The copy of the engraving I owe to the Council of 

 the Antiquarian Society. 



" In presenting to the Museum of the Society the small ring of cannel 

 coal and portions of a clay urn from Mr Currie, sculptor, Darnick, it is 

 worth recording that their remains were found in long sepulchral cists, 

 composed of large slabs or flagstones, containing traces of bones, which 

 were discovered this spring, while the ground was being trenched, in the 

 garden attached to a shepherd's cottage, a little to the west of Yarrow 

 kirk, in Selkirkshire. Eight cists were discovered closely adjoining one 

 another, and each measuring it is said, some 5 or 6 feet in length, about 

 the size of ordinary graves, and they lay apparently in the direction of 

 east and west. The ring of cannel coal (which is well represented in the 

 subjoined drawing,) is of a rounded form, and 

 shaped somewhat like the horn frame of a watch- 

 maker's eyeglass. It has four small perforations 

 placed at irregular intervals in its grooved sides ; 

 which pass through to the inside. The diameter^ 

 of the larger margin of the ring is nearly If 

 inch, and of the other or smaller side li^ ; it is 

 about f of an inch in depth on the side, and the 

 central aperture measures nearly an inch in width. 



The small piece of the coarse clay urn, which was unfortunately 

 broken at the time of its discovery, shews the usual patterns of oblique 

 and straight lines, formed by the twisted cord, round its upper part, 

 similar to the class of clay drinking-cups found in cists of a primitive 

 character. A flint arrow-head was also found in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of the cists. A special interest was given to these cists, from their 

 being in close proximity to three rude standing stones, which are placed in 

 a line along the valley, running nearly east and west, at about a gun-shot 

 apart from each other ; and it was at a distance of some 30 to 36 feet to 

 the south of the eastern stone that the cists were found. Close by, a cairn 

 or heap of small round stones was discovered, enclosing a considerable 

 quantity of partially decomposed bones, which after a few minutes exposure 

 to the air crumbled into dust ; and so numerous were the fragments of 

 bones cast up by the workmen employed in digging the foundation of the 

 recently built shepherd's cottage, which stands a little to the north of the 

 stone, that they fancied the ground here had been the site of an old 

 churchyard. " 



The ground was brought under cultivation about 1807 or 8, 

 by the late Mr Ballantyne of Whitehope. The late Rev. Dr. 

 Eussell, Yarrow, in a letter to Dr Smith, thus indicates the 

 situation: — 



" The piece of ground to the west of Yarrow Church appears to have 

 been the scene of slaughter and sepulchre on a large scale, and probably 

 on more than one occasion. From time immemorial it was a low waste 



