Report of Meetings for 1891. By Dr J. Hardy. 319 



very good state of preservation, considering the probable time 

 they have been underground, are in one of the cofl&ns." Being 

 at Dunbar on October 5th, I went to Belhaven, and then past 

 Winterfield eastwards to make some inquiries, and see the cists 

 exposed by the recent storm. They are situated in a low range 

 of cliff, composed in descending order of a coarse brown clay 

 and sand, like a Boulder Clay sand, some feet in thickness ; 

 underneath this there are several feet of layers of sea-rolled 

 gravel, and comminuted and perfect shells, Limpets, Littorinse, 

 and a few Cockles, horizontally and regularly deposited on 

 horizontal strata of Sandstone, mostly red, or with a mixture of 

 red and white, or a gray white ; perhaps of Calciferous age. 



On the surface of the whole is a finer and newer drifted 

 sand, compacted by a turf of sand-bent, and finer grasses and 

 clovers. This drifted sand overlies the western or Winterfield 

 end, all the way to the beach : towards the east end there is a 

 fault in the Sandstone which brings the strata there into an 

 oblique position, and a lower level. The graves lie westward of 

 the slip, and are all at a uniform level ; having been dug to the 

 shell sand, through the brown drift soil and sand, and the 

 surface covering ; and had been constructed at a considerable 

 distance from each other, and not crowded as if the hastily 

 interred victims of slaughter in a battle, although their regular- 

 ity may betoken some common calamity. The sea has wrenched 

 away most of the slabs, and of many of them only the hollow 

 upper end remains. A few were still perfect. Bones were 

 scarce ; but in one they were numerous and pretty entire. The 

 teeth and cranium had disappeared. The cists were as narrow 

 as a coflB.n, and of considerable length : they were " long 

 graves." The slabs are from the adjacent freestone rock, which 

 splits easily ; the slab on the bottom was thin ; the defects of 

 imperfect side flags were supplied by lesser pieces, narrow slabs 

 were laid across the top, and not a heavy cover in a single piece 

 placed lengthways. The stones are in the rudest condition, 

 without any artistic dressing : memorials of a barbarous people. 

 Unfortunately the crania and the teeth have in all the instances 

 known hereabouts, been carried off by non-residents, and 

 nothing more is known about them. Some masons engaged in 

 repairing the breaches of the sea-wall, whom I passed nearer 

 Dunbar, had on a former occasion come upon similar graves 

 near Belhaven. They described the crania as large, and broad 



