By the Rev. J. L. Ross. 



239 



ancient method of disposing of the dead was by interment. The 

 earliest Greeks adopted this custom, in which they were imitated 

 by the Romans in the infancy of their state; and the Celts, a very 

 ancient people, seem also to have preferred this method ; and on the 

 graves of illustrious persons, they gathered heaps of stones into a pile, 

 which they called Cairns or Cromlechs, to distinguish them from 

 those of the multitude. 



"The remains of people of the same eminence among the Gothic 

 tribes, were treated in a different manner. Though their enemies, 

 and the inferior ranks were interred, the bodies of men of distinc- 

 tion, as has been already stated, were either wholly, or in part, 

 consumed to ashes, which were carefully collected either into an 

 Urn, or a coffin formed of stones; and a heap of earth, or tumulus, 

 was raised over them. Hence, the number of these tumuli or bar- 

 rows, spread over the countries inhabited by the different branches 

 of that ancient people in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, and 

 the East coast of Scotland, as well as in some of the Hebridae in 

 Iceland, and the Orkney Isles. The numbers found here are con- 

 siderable; seldom single, but two, or three, or more in the same 

 place ; all of a circular form, and different in dimensions ; placed 

 without any distinction of hill or dale, by the sea, or inland ; gene- 

 rally in dry places, and for the most part in sandy ground. Some few 

 of them are encircled with stones set on edge around their bottoms ; 

 a remarkable one has two stones set upright on its top; and, when 

 curiosity has penetrated their interior, they are almost all found to 

 exhibit contents in which there is much similarity. As in Eng- 

 land, those that have been opened have discovered, some of them, 

 urns with ashes ; some stone coffins, in which the bodies have been 

 deposited; and some, naked skeletons: 1 — so here also, when looked 

 into, they have been found to contain the same things. But be- 

 sides these, which are the principal, several other articles have 

 sometimes been found along with them ; such as the bones of some 

 domestic animal; swords of metal, or of bone; helmets, combs, with 

 other things, the use of which cannot now be discovered. 



1 Pinkerton, &c. 



