west, Eound outside this island for about four yards in width there are 

 regularly placed small flat stones; and at the S.-E. shore of the island (under 

 the water at the time we visited it), there is an east and west beam seven 

 inches wide. These things would seem to point to its being artificial ; 

 but we made various excavations in different parts of the island, and 

 found no traces of ancient inhabitants ; an excavation in the centre of it 

 gave us four feet of peat, under which was shell marl. From this I am 

 inclined to think that this island may have been partly natural, and 

 partly artificial. 



Ballin Lough occupies a hollow among low hills, the only exit from 

 it being on the S.-E., at the village of Ballinlough, where there is 

 an artificial cut about four feet deep through a bank of coarse stony 

 drift (boulder clay'), about sixty yards wide. If this cut was filled up, the 

 waters of the lake would rise at least four feet higher than at present; and 

 that the water was at this level not long since, would seem to have been 

 the case, as all round the lake to over that height there is a deposit of 

 shell marl and peat. As the level of the water when the island was ex- 

 amined was three feet above the basket floor in the Crannoge, it must 

 have been at least seven feet above the floor before the cut was made 

 through the bank of drift. Erom this we see that when the Crannoges 

 were built, the water of the lake must have been at least four feet lower 

 than in March, 1864, and at least eight feet lower than the height of the 

 water before the artificial cut was made ; how the waters could have 

 been at that level we have now to consider. 



On the Ordnance Maps we find that the height of the lake is 356 

 feet above their datum level, and that a quarter of a mile to the S.-E., 

 in the townland of Tulla, the surface of the stream is 340 feet. Erom 

 this we see that if a cut was made from this point, it would lower 

 the lake sixteen feet ; or thirteen feet lower than the basket floor- 

 ing of the Crannoge ; and if we examine the stream, we will find that 

 the rise from this point to the village of Ballinlough is only a few feet, 

 while from the village to the lough it is very rapid, being over eight 

 feet. Erom this we see that if there had once been a natural cut or 

 ravine through this bank of drift from the village to the lake, the wa- 

 ters of the latter would have been five feet below the basket flooring of 

 the Crannoge. On examining the bank of drift on the west of the 

 village, what may be the trace of an ancient ravine will be ob- 

 served, which appears to have been artificially filled up with stuff taken 

 from an oblong excavation, marked a on Eig. jSTo. 1, about three or four 

 yards wide, and about six or eight yards long, and that the ravine since it 

 was filled up has been used as a road, which has helped to obliterate the 

 old embouchement of the lake. To account for this artificial filling, I would 

 suggest that the inhabitants of the Crannoge were flooded out by an 

 enemy who stopped the egress of the lake, and thus raised the waters 

 until the islands with the huts and inhabitants were swamped. The 

 islands after this were submerged until the present cut was opened, 



