328 



If we measure by the scale of the Ordnance maps, the lake will be 

 found to stand ("as the crow flies") four miles and a quarter to the 

 west and north of the police station of Bohoe, and three and a half 

 miles in a south-westerly direction from the "Lettered Cave" of 

 Knockmore. There is no road or path by which it can be approached 

 nearer than four miles. The lake, which is about one acre in extent, 

 is bounded upon its northern side by a rugged cliff of yellowish sand- 

 stone, rising to a height of perhaps thirty feet above the level of the 

 water. 



"Within the face of this rock are several caverns, two of them, in 

 part at least, the work of human hands. The largest measures six feet 

 in height, by about the same in breadth at the opening, and its depth 

 is ten feet. The sides and roof are extremely rough, except in certain 

 places, where some little care appears to have been used for the pur- 

 pose of preparing the surface of the rock for the reception of a series of 

 " scorings" and other devices, any notice of which, as far as I am aware, 

 has not hitherto been presented to the learned in antiquities. 



It may be here remarked that the chief cavern is connected with a 

 second and smaller one, lying upon its western side, by an aperture in 

 the partition of the rock, by which, but for this opening, the two cham- 

 bers would be completely divided. Of the lesser cavern I have now 

 little to say. It is small, rude, and uninscribed, but large enough, and 

 sufficiently dry, to have been used as a sleeping apartment by the pri- 

 mitive occupiers of the rock. The larger cavern, from which the neigh- 

 bouring lake appears to have derived its name, owes its chief interest 

 to the occurrence upon its sides of a number of " scorings," figures, or 

 designs in characters perfectly similar or strictly analogous to the mys - 

 terious scribings upon rocks which have been noticed in localities 

 widely apart, and to which the attention of antiquaries has of late been 

 particularly directed. Many men of ancient or modern times, confined 

 by necessity to a listless existence in an inhospitable region, might very 

 naturally have beguiled their hours by carving with a stone or metallic 

 instrument such figures as their fancy prompted upon the nearest object 

 which happened to present a surface more or less smooth. Scorings or 

 designs, made under such circumstances, would be in character as 

 various as the skill or humours of their authors. Now, when in many 

 districts of the country, and some of them widely apart, we find upon 

 the sides of caves and rocks, and within the inclosure of pagan sepul- 

 chral tumuli, a certain well-defined class of engravings, often arranged 

 in groups, and, with few exceptions, presenting what may be styled a 

 family type, we can hardly imagine them to be the result of caprice. 



The period wherein it was usual amongst antiquaries to collect and 

 consider the nature of our rock carvings is so recent, that probably a 

 very small portion of existing remains of that class has been examined. 

 When a thorough search shall have been made, and the result recorded, 

 when at least the mass of our rock " scribings" shall have been pub- 

 lished and compared one with another, group with group, and with 

 similar work found upon monuments of Britain and of primitive Conti- 



