166 TRANSACTIONS LIVEEPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



monoliths to the small gate posts and floor stones are 

 of the grey clay slate of which the mountain is formed, 

 and some of which crops out close at hand with highly 

 inclined cleavage planes, so that probably large slabs 

 could be readily split off with wedges and then dragged 

 or rolled to their present positions. No lintel, impost, or 

 covering to the cist appears to have been used : above the 

 flooring of flat slabs and the buried urns, ashes and 

 flints, the cist appears simply to have been filled in with 

 loose stones and earth up to nearly the top of the side 

 stones (see PL XII, fig. 1). The burials were evidently all 

 by cremation, 2 to 5 or more urns being deposited in each 

 tangential cist or in the proximal end of the radials — we 

 met with no such remains in the distal part of any 

 radial cist. 



Altogether we have been able to distinguish the remains 

 of at least 26 distinct urns, all however in a fragmentary 

 condition. With this pottery were some fragments of 

 calcined bones, ashes and loose charcoal, also compacted 

 lumps of bone, ash, and charcoal, with a certain amount 

 of greasy black matter. A few flint instruments were 

 met with including three arrow heads (PL XII, fig. 2), at 

 least 5 knives, a scraper, and some broken pieces. In each 

 cist also were found a number of rounded white quartz peb- 

 bles, from the beach, measuring 1 to 6 inches in diameter. 

 These were found scattered through the grave without 

 obvious arrangement, although they may orginally have 

 been carefully deposited on the floor around the urns or in 

 some definite manner. In some other ancient burial 

 places in the island similar white quartz pebbles, evidently 

 brought from the sea-shore, have been used. Can this be 

 the origin of the superstitious dislike the natives still 

 have to the use of the " clagh-bane " or " white stone " ? 

 Fishermen for instance will refuse to go to sea in a boat 

 which has a white stone in the ballast. 



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