278 



tioned a portion of a glazed crucible, and a large mass of brownish me- 

 tallic dross, regularly convex on one surface, as if it had been turned 

 out of a large concave vessel. 



" The principal stretchers (about forty in number) which composed 

 the flooring, were made of black oak, and were in a tolerable state of 

 preservation. Each plank was from six to twelve feet in length, and 

 from six to twelve inches square. They were laid down so that they 

 extended lengthways from the circumference towards the centre, form- 

 ing a number of radii, somewhat like the spokes of a wheel, as shown in 

 this illu stration. Their outer ends were kept in positionby slender crooked 



trunks of oak trees, forming a kind of circle ; and these again were fixed 

 into their places by the outer row of stockades — before described — which, 

 no doubt, prevented the earthy portion of the island from being under- 

 mined during occasional winter inundations. The planks were not in 

 close apposition, and the spaces so left were filled by a quantity of blocks, 

 and thick branches of sallow, deal, and hazle, some of them unstript of 

 bark ; many of their branches extended underneath the sleepers, and 

 separated them from the peat bottom. The branches were for the most 

 part rotten, and were easily broken down. "We found here hazel nuts, 

 hard and brown, as if they had but just fallen from the tree. 



" When the peat was removed to the extent of two feet in depth, near 

 the outer part of the enclosure, the space so left was immediately filled 

 up with bog water ; a similar examination near the centre exposed a 

 hard foundation of blue clay. The timber composing the crannoge ap- 

 peared to have been roughly hewn, and in no instance were the pieces 

 of which it was constructed joined together by nails or mortises ; two 

 of the stretchers, however, had mortises skilfully cut in them." 



On the part of Lord Farnham, Mr. Wilde exhibited to the Academy 

 various articles which were found in the examination of the crannoge, 

 and which are enumerated in his letter of the 9th February, communi- 

 cated to the Academy at the meeting held on the 16th of that month (see 

 p. 289). 



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