516 Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 



same gallery type. Two curious miniature specimens, with. 

 Roman-cut stones, have been found at different times at New- 

 stead near the Eildons ; but my impression is they were both 

 large enough to have hidden a man whose only object was to be 

 concealed during daylight. 



In spite of the name of Carbrook for the mansion near the 

 foot of the Torwood Hill, in Stirlingshire, which seems to indicate 

 that the circular drystone house on the hill was known as Caer- 

 Broch in Cumbrian times, I believe that to have been a link 

 between the weems and the regular brochs, or drystone towers 

 without external windows. I should suppose it to have been 

 much like the circular drystone dwellings still partly inhabited 

 in the small islands off St Kilda. It finishes neatly at the level 

 of the ground, which has been mounded up on one side, and has 

 a ledge all round for a loft ; while if it had the eight stone 

 divisions which support the roof in the West Highland specimens, 

 they, with the drystone dome, would account for the great 

 quantity of stones which filled it. It is about thirty feet in 

 diameter, and about ten feet deep ; the floor the natural rock 

 levelled ; a regular doorway enters from the lower side. The 

 late Captain Thomas, whose papers, written from actual observa- 

 tion during the naval survey of the west coast, throw much light 

 on the subject of drystone domestic architecture, seems never- 

 theless never to have seen a true underground weem. I believe 

 the other underground or mound houses in Stirlingshire are much 

 of the same type as that on the Torwood Hill. N.B. Edin's Ha', 

 however it comes where it is, seems to be a true broch or tower. 



I think I have observed that the great majority of the weems 

 and dolmens alike, are found near inhabited dwellings, and there- 

 fore near water. There are at least three cases of dolmens which 

 have been inhabited, within this century, by people who would 

 probably have been vagrants otherwise. Mr Lukis saw and 

 talked to a man who lived in a four-celled dolmen somewhere ; 

 and that in the middle of the interesting hamlet of Crucuno was 

 inhabited for about ten years by a half-witted man who was a 

 native of the village. This has, now at least, no covering of 

 earth ; and the dolmens generally do not suggest concealment. 

 We visited more than twenty specimens near Pont L' Abbe, 

 Carnac, and Locmariaker. 



I see in Polwhele's History of Cornwall, the writer describes 

 at least two subterranean buildings, from his own observation ; 



