56 Clava : " The Stonehenge of Scotland!' [Sess. 



dition, and all the others have suffered more or less at the 

 hands of ruthless man. Mr Eraser numbers the circles con- 

 secutively, beginning with the one farthest up the valley, and 

 in this paper it will be best to adopt his numbers. 



The circles of the Clava group, Nos. 7 to 14 in Mr 

 Eraser's list, lie along the middle of the narrow plain on the 

 right side of the river, and extend about a mile up the valley 

 from the Nairn viaduct on the new Aviemore and Inverness 

 Railway. They are best reached from Culloden Moor station, 

 a little to the north of the viaduct. Proceed westward along 

 the Inverness road to the cross-road at Cumberland's Stone, 

 near the famous battlefield, then down the slope and across 

 the Nairn. Passing the new Clava lodge on the left, the 

 road turns at right angles to the right, and about half a mile 

 farther turns up the slope towards the railway. In the 

 middle of the field inside the first turn, and opposite the 

 lodge, there is a single standing stone about five feet high 

 which marks the site of two circles, Nos. 13 and 14, and is 

 all that is now left of them. A little farther on, in a bit of 

 moorland, there are three circles, Nos. 10, 11, and 12, the 

 chief and most perfect of the group. In a field beyond the 

 next turn of the road are to be seen the remains of two, Nos. 

 8 and 9 ; and still farther on in the same line there is a 

 single one, No. 7, the last of the group. These, with two on 

 the opposite side of the river, but naw nearly or altogether 

 cleared away, made ten circles within a mile of each other. 

 But judging from collections of stones in various places, there 

 can be little doubt that many more existed in the neighbour- 

 hood. 



A notable feature of all the circles in the district is their 

 triple character; that is, each circle is composed of three 

 concentric, or nearly concentric, rings ; and some of them, as 

 Nos. 10 and 12, contain chambered cairns, somewhat like the 

 famous Maeshowe. The circles vary considerably in size, the 

 outer ring of the largest being 126 feet in diameter, and of 

 the smallest, 70 feet. 



Let us now return to the leading sub-group, Nos. 10, 11, and 

 12, in the moorland, and examine them closely. All the rings 

 of these circles are nearly complete. The diameter of the three 

 rings of No. 10 are respectively 108, 53, and 12^ feet. The 



