369 



another stone ball, upwards of three-quarters of an inch in diameter, 

 of a brown colour, dashed with dark spots; a finely polished oval jet 

 ornament, an inch and a quarter in length, and three-quarters of an 

 inch broad ; eight other white stone balls, probably carbonate of lime, 

 which, from lying for ages in their damp bed, had become quite soft, 

 but which gradually dried, on exposure, to a sufficient degree of hard- 

 ness to enable me to take them away in a tolerable state of preservation. 



I should perhaps have previously observed that the large flagstones 

 alluded to in this paper are, as to material, of a uniform character, 

 consisting of compact sandy grit, the natural rock of the locality. The 

 stone, however, marked l^o. 1 8 in this cairn, is an exception, being 

 a good specimen of a water- washed column of blue limestone, pro- 

 bably from some of the adjoining lakes ; and the stone marked "No. 2, 

 in caim W., is a similar stone. 



It is also worthy of remark that the stone No. 25 in this cairn — for 

 which there does not appear to be any particular necessity in the con- 

 struction of the chamber, there being already a stone placed there to 

 form the back — is a diamond-shaped slab, placed on one of its angles ; 

 and the stone abutting on it is elaborately carved on both sides with 

 diamond-shaped figures. A Celtic drinking cup, with handle, was 

 discovered by Mr. Bateman in 1850, in a cairn about a mile north of 

 Pickering, * which was found to be decorated with this same diamond- 

 shaped pattern. Of it he says : — " The ornamentation of the vessel is 

 peculiar, consisting chiefly of angularly pointed cartouches, filled with 

 a reticulated pattern, and having a band of the same encircling the 

 upper part." 



On the lower surface of the second large roofing flag, above the up- 

 right, numbered 21 (having two layers of thin stones intervening), and 

 looking directly down upon the large sepulchral basin, is a reticulated 

 pattern, finely cut, nine inches long, and varying from three to four 

 inches in breadth, formed by twelve short lines crossing in a slanting 

 direction eight other nearly parallel lines, having at present about fifty 

 meshes, varying from half an inch to an inch in breadth, and from 

 an inch to an inch and a half in length. 



M. 



About 650 yards to the S. E. of L, and crowning the next knoll, called 

 Carrickbrac, from the speckled nature of the rock which forms the 

 hill, are the remains of a cairn, 22 yards in diameter, at present only 

 about four feet high, and wanting the usual boundary ring of large 

 stones. 



% 



On the top of a second knoll, 572 yards due east from M, are the 

 debris of a cairn, 22 yards in diameter. At present not more than two 



* See Bateman's ?< Ten Years' Diggings," p. 209, 



