OF THE BRITISH 1'EHIOD AT WAEKSHATTGH. 161 



niingred with many small pieces of charcoal,) was found how- 

 ever near the top or head, in this as well as in each of the other 

 cists, and effectually disproved such a theory. The eastern cist 

 was peculiar in containing an urn, though not with burnt bones 

 in it, or the ashes of cremation. It measured two feet five inches 

 in breadth, and the two side slabs were three feet five inches, 

 and three feet three inches long. A massive slab, four feet in 

 length, by two feet nine inches broad in the widest part, and 

 seven inches thick, covered it, and a second covering slab, two 

 feet six inches long by fourteen inches wide, was laid over it at 

 the head or north end. When first opened a bottom slab ap- 

 peared at about nine inches deep, which proved to have been 

 originally placed at the west side, and had afterwards fallen 

 inwards, crushing the urn, and forming the apparent bottom 

 lining. Several large water- worn stones were set round the 

 covering slab, and their weight had caused the fall of the other 

 on that side. Here we were able to inspect a section of the sand 

 which filled each of the cists. It appeared to have been brought 

 from the margin-beds of the river, and not to have percolated, as 

 we might suppose, in the slow lapse of centuries with the rains 

 or floods descending through the super-incumbent mass of loose 

 materials of which the barrow was composed. Only a few years 

 since the base of the cairn remained, and so numerous were the 

 stones found on the spot whenever it was ploughed that the farm 

 labourers declared that "they grew." The section consisted 

 first of a four- inch layer of fine sand on which to place the body, 

 then a mixture of soil beneath, two and a half or three feet deep, 

 of darker colour than the rest, and, lastly, the alluvial drift in 

 its natural undisturbed condition. This cist was formed more 

 carefully than the others, of good freestone slabs, as if to do 

 honour to the person whose relics it held in safe keeping. The 

 south-eastern cist, on the other hand, was the most rudely formed 

 of all. The huge covering slab, three feet eight inches long, by 

 two feet six inches wide, and nearly a foot in thickness, seems 

 to have pressed the lining slabs beneath into their irregular 

 shape, and made it appear smaller than it would originally be. 

 It was, indeed, the least in size, averaging two feet four inches 



