of 100 feet above that sea, the rocks themselves attaining an elevation of 260 feet. They have now been repeatedly rifled by the learned or the curious; but when the principal cave was nearly intact, the author made a section of it from the modern or highest floor down to the solid rock. There were five floors formed in the earth by long continued trampling; on each, and near the centre, were marks of fire, around which broken bones and flints were abundant, except upon the lowest, where but few bones occurred and no flints. The bones were those of animals still existing. Few implements were found, but many chips of flint, some cores, and stones used as hammers. Perhaps this cave was used as a place for manufacturing flints, which must have been carried from their native bed, distant about one mile. There is nothing to evince the action of water; on the contrary, the numerous stones that occur are all angular, derived apparently from the flaking off of portions of the rock, a slow process, and showing that long periods had elapsed between each of those five occupations, and thus evidencing the great antiquity of the present European fauna."

Whatever that antiquity may have been, we now come to still more ancient times.

Below these caves a slope of about 180 feet descends to the edge of the sea. Through the upper part of this slope, at distances from the caves of from 0 to 10 feet, is a railway-cutting 600 feet long, 54 feet deep, and 60 feet above the sea. The mass removed in making this cutting was composed of angular stones, not waterworn. Loose at the surface, it soon became a more or less mature breccia (specimens were produced), for the most part so hard that it was blasted with gunpowder. In this breccia, and at various depths, some of more than 30 feet, the author has taken out teeth of the Bear (Ursus spelaus) and of the Hyæna (Hyena spelaa), while with and below those teeth he found flints worked by man (specimens of teeth and of flints were produced).

Bones and teeth of other animals also occur, for the naming of which the auther is indebted to the kindness of Mr. Busk, who says that they are almost identical with those found in the Gibraltar caves.

At the eastern end of the cutting described the railroad passes through a tunnel, emerging close to the sea, and near to what is known as the Roman bridge. Here in sinking for the foundation of a sea-wall, bones and teeth were discovered, but not under such satisfactory conditions as at the western side of the tunnel, since the stones were loose and some of them rounded.

Still following the line of the railway to the east, at half a mile a deep cutting occurs through stiff clay, the result of the washing down of the hill-side. In this, at a depth of 65 feet, the author took out the frontal bone and part of the antlers of a large stag (produced). They were perfect, but in such a state that he could save only the parts.

A few feet off, and on the same horizon, were these teeth of Ursus spelaus, marvellously well preserved when we consider the time that must have been required for the accumulation of 65 feet of solid ground; and that not in a hollow or a river's bed, but on the gently sloping side of a hill.

The author suggested that the section of the cave evidences the great antiquity of the present European fauna, while the teeth of the Cave Bear and Hyæna found with worked flints some 30 feet deep in solid breccia, add to the proofs hitherto adduced that those beasts were really contemporary with man.

Note on a Cross traced upon a Hill at Cringletie, near Peebles.
By J. WOLFE MURRAY.

On Ancient Modes of Sepulture in the Orkneys. By GEORGE PETRIE. The author stated that sepulchral mounds are very numerous in the Orkneys. Generally they occupy elevated situations which command a view of the sea, or of a lake, or of both, where the latter was attainable. They stand singly or in groups, or are arranged in a straight line. Occasionally they appear as twin barrows.

They differ greatly in size, and there is also much diversity in their internal arrangements. In some of the barrows (which, with rare exceptions, are of the bowlshape) human skeletons have been found in kists, either lying extended at full length, or on the right or left side in a flexed posture in one case the skeleton was in a sitting posture. It is not uncommon to find interments both by inhumation and cremation in the same barrow, and even in the same kist.

Graves or kists unconnected with barrows are not unfrequently met with, but they are only accidentally discovered. If barrows formerly existed over any of them, they have long since disappeared.

Some of the largest barrows contained only a small quantity of fragments of burnt bones, or ashes lying about the centre of the barrow, either on a flat stone, or imbedded in a greasy-looking clay. In others the burnt bones and ashes lay on the natural surface of the soil beneath a small cairn of stones, over which clay had been heaped to complete the mound. A third class contained one or more kists, usually of flagstone set on edge, either wholly undressed, or more or less rudely fitted together. The kists, which average about 2 feet in length and 14 foot in width and depth, are found to contain either burnt bones or ashes, or cinerary urns of stone or fire-baked clay, in which the bones or ashes have been deposited. Few stone or bronze weapons are found in the barrows or kists, and personal ornaments are still more rarely met with. The urns are usually very rude.

Two human skeletons were found near Kirkwall in a stone kist underneath a barrow; both were in the flexed posture. One was on its right side with its head close to one end of the kist, and the other lay on its left side at the opposite end. The skull of the first-mentioned skeleton has been described by Dr. J. Barnard Davis as presenting all the characteristic features of the Ancient Briton; the other skull was of a greatly inferior type, more square in outline and remarkably thick. A large kist was discovered in another locality in Orkney, also containing two human skeletons lying similarly to those already described, and presenting the same characteristic differences. In each case the skeleton of lowest type appeared to have been rudely treated and recklessly thrust into the kist, while great care had evidently been taken with the other skeleton found beside it. The whole appearance of the skeletons and their arrangement in the kists suggested the question, Were the squat skeletons with the short thick skulls those of slaves or captives who had been slain and placed beside their masters? and have we in them discovered traces of an aboriginal race of colonists of the Orkneys, akin to the Fins or Esquimaux, whose snow houses the so-called Picts'-houses so closely resemble in form and structure, making due allowance for the difference between the materials employed in their construction?

There is another class of tumuli in Orkney known as "Picts'-houses." They usually resemble the Bowl-barrows externally, but when examined the so-called "Pict's-house" is found to be a mass of building, generally circular at the base, containing in its centre several small chambers or cells surrounding a larger chamber. Each cell is connected by a low short passage with the central chamber, and from the latter a passage extends to the outside of the structure, which is circumscribed by a low wall or facing, generally about 2 feet in height. The walls of each chamber converge till at the top or roof they are only a foot or two apart, and the opening is covered in by flagstones placed across it. Occasionally human skeletons have been found in such buildings; but most archæologists were of opinion that the Picts'-houses were not sepulchral. The opening of Maes-how in Stenness, and especially of a chambered mound in its neighbourhood, showed, however that they had been used as tombs, as Mr. Petrie had supposed. A subsequent discovery of a "Pict's-house" within the ruins of a "Brough," or Round Tower, containing human skeletons along with bones of the Ox, Sheep, &c., and two rude stone implements of peculiar form, afforded still more conclusive evidence of the sepulchral character of the "Picts'-houses," and proved beyond a doubt that, even if originally erected as dwellings, they had subsequently been used as chambered tombs. It would be premature at present, Mr. Petrie observed, to attempt to determine the age of the "Picts'-houses," but the "Broughs," with which they appear to be intimately connected, were undoubtedly existing merely as ruined buildings, and in many instances presenting externally only the appearance of huge barrows, when

the Norsemen invaded the islands in the ninth century. The last class received from the Norsemen the name of "Hoi," or gravemound (now called "Howe"), and the former, in which the structures were still visible, were known as "Bjorgs ("Broughs"). So far as has yet been ascertained, the discovery of iron implements has been limited to the ruins known as "Broughs," which appear to have been known to, and in some cases occupied by, the Norsemen. The mounds which bear the name of "Howe," and have, when opened, been found to conceal the remains of "Broughs," have yielded only stone, bone, and a few bronze relics. Mr. Petrie referred to one of those mounds near Kirkwall, in which he lately found Roman silver coins of the Emperors Vespasian, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.

Details were given of various barrows and kists and of their contents, and the descriptions were illustrated by diagrams.

On an Expedition for the Special Investigation of the Hebrides and West Highlands, in search of Evidences of Ancient Serpent-Worship. By JOHN S. PHENÉ, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Member of the British Archæological Association.

The author commenced by stating that he felt bound to give the grounds for his assertion, made at the last Meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, that he had met with evidences of serpent-mounds and constructions identical with those of Ohio and Wisconsin.

Impressed with the idea that if serpent-worship had been a feature in the early religion of these lands some evidences must still remain, he organized a party for searching such localities in the Hebrides and West Highlands as had not been examined with that object, nor had come under the attention of the theorists for serpent-worship, such as Dr. Stukeley and Sir R. C. Hoare; the party was unbiassed, and former theories strictly avoided. It became purely a matter of survey of existing relics that was undertaken.

The paper was very fully illustrated by diagrams, and the author first drew attention to one representing three outlines of animal forms, two being earthen mounds, taken from the elaborate surveys in Wisconsin by J. A. Lapham, Esq., and the third the stone foundation of a "bo'h" in South Uist, in a work by Capt. F. L. W. Thomas, R.N. Though the purposes and materials were different, the designs clearly demonstrated the fact that the early inhabitants of Britain and America made constructions in the forms of animals. From this he proceeded to the earliest pottery, and by his diagrams showed the great similarity between that of the earliest British and American, from a sepulchral urn in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and one taken from a mound at Racine, on Lake Michigan, by Dr. P. R. Hoy, with a similar specimen obtained from Berigonium, and which was on the table. Instances also of cremative burial, and of whole skeletons in the sitting posture, in both countries, clearly indicated a unity of custom. Having, he thought, established these points, he proceeded to trace the course of serpentworship from the east; he related some of his own experiences of that worship in India, followed it through Egypt to Greece, pointing out that some of the myths covered its struggles with the more intellectual religion of that country, as the destruction of the Python by Apollo, the strangling of serpents by Hercules, and the relapse of Laocoon and his two sons into the grosser rites, and their consequent punishment. Having traced the spread of this worship and its course westward, he next drew special attention to the construction of earthen mounds and tumuli in America and Britain: he quoted from Messrs. Lapham and Squier's surveys, that natural mounds were adapted artificially to peculiar purposes; at Lapham's Peak three artificial mounds were found, of stone and earth, on the lofty summit; the material had been conveyed by great labour; the hill on which the "Great Serpent Mound" of Mr. Squier is placed had been "cut out, evidently to adapt it to the form desired to be constructed." In the Annals of Cambridge' a tumulus in the Gogmagog Hills was formed by layers of different soils, each totally unlike the soil of the neighbourhood, and brought by great labour from remote distances. The Castle Hill at Cambridge is a British tumulus raised on a preexisting natural

elevation. The Eildon Hills have similar artificial adaptations; and the author had himself traced the different soils of the tumulus in the greater Cumbrae, and the hollows whence they were brought. He referred to the artificial summit of the Dragon Hill, at Uffington Castle, Berks, and suggested that the White Horse and the sculptured rocks at Ilkley were British delineations. After these evidences of adaptation, he described the serpent, lizard, and alligator mounds of Messrs. Squier and Lapham, which contain oval works towards the head, and evidences of altars and fire within them. He then showed by diagrams several mounds that he identified as corresponding with these, some even in minute details; he referred to examples in Arran, in Monteviot Park, in which latter, towards the south and east of what he considered the site of an altar, he discovered human remains, and finally dwelt on a serpentine mound in Argyleshire several hundred feet long, and about 15 feet high by 30 broad, tapering gradually to the tail, the head being formed by a circular cairn, the centre of which had evidently been occupied by a megalithic structure, which he considered an altar, the large stones of which were lying round the base of the cairn. He could not of course adduce direct evidences of the worship of the serpent, but it had been traced as coexistent with sun-worship in America, where these evidences of the serpent were found; and discovering similar remains in Britain, which retains many indications of sun-worship, and as these two forms of worship went almost hand in hand in other countries, he considered himself justified in concluding that he had found examples of it here also, drawing attention to the variety and beauty of the specimens of early British art on the table to show the care and extent of his explorations.

On some indications of the Manners and Customs of the early Inhabitants of Britain, deduced from the Remains of their towns and villages. By JOHN S. PHENÉ, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Member of the British Archæological Asso

ciation.

The author drew attention to two prominent points, viz. the universality of the circle, curve, or oval in all the earliest British remains; and the similarity of the physics of the various localities where British towns are still traceable. He selected the widely separated positions of Greaves Ash, in the Cheviot Hills, Standlake, near Oxford, and Tolsford Hill, near Saltwood Castle, Kent; and after showing that the same features existed in each of these, although some of the settlements were formed by excavations and some by erections; after referring for examples to the camps, forts, towns, and individual dwellings,-ornaments, as fibulæ, beads, amulets, articles of domestic use, as the quern,-and to the cup- and ring-marks on the incised stones of Northumberland, New Grange, Ilkley, and elsewhere, he argued that though divided into clans and tribes, yet that these were originally but divisions of one people, as the idea could not be entertained that at the time of these formations, with many of the tribes separating the people of such remote districts, to say nothing of their frequent hostility, different races should have assimilated so much, more especially with interrupted, or indeed no direct communications. He did not, however, mean that this prejudiced the question of cooccupation by a foreign and immigrating, or even preoccupying race, at that time being distinct and unamalgamated with the mass of the people. Assuming these evidences conclusive, he proceeded to compare the constructions with others at a still wider range, selecting in Britain the extreme points of the Hebrides, Caernarvonshire, and Cornwall, and giving examples in the Alps, in Sicily, and even in the wilderness near Mount Sinai, of similar designs; illustrating his arguments by original drawings made by special permission from articles in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and from those of the Palestine Exploration Fund, &c. Referring to the physical features of the localities he had described in Britain, he pointed out the prevalence of the conical hill towards the east of such settlements, with a flowing stream dividing the one from the other, as in the cases of the Breamish flowing between Greaves Ash and the Ingram and Reaveley Hills, the Thames between Standlake and the Beacon Hill, and the stream between Tolsford Hill and Cæsar's Camp. Where localities had not the desired features, or they were

not sufficiently prominent, art was had recourse to, as in the Castle Hill at Cambridge, Silbury Hill, &c. He considered these, evidences of the custom of worship on the tops of such mountains, from their orientation, and recalled the fact of many mountains still bearing names indicative of Baal- or Sun-worship; that the flowing stream formed a division of sanctification or purity; that each settlement had its hill of worship, and that the modern church-spires of the plains had replaced the aspiring flame which once ascended from the several tribal districts or divisions of our land; and that on or near these places of previous occupancy were founded our oldest cities.

From the juxtaposition of ancient British pottery, where large and small urns were found together, from the lateral perforations of both, distinct from perforations for suspension (an example of which in the possession of Professor Rolleston at Oxford has these perforations less than two inches from the bottom of an urn of the larger kind), from the material found in the small urns differing from that in the large, and in one case being a mummified heart-shaped body, he concluded that the preservation of the heart in the small urn was also a custom with these ancient people.

Discovery of Flint Implements in Egypt, at Mount Sinai, at Galgala, and in Joshua's Tomb. By the ABBE RICHARD.

On Skulls presenting Sagittal Synostosis. By Professor STRUTHERS.

On Implements found in King Arthur's Cave, near Whitchurch.
By the Rev. W. S. SYMONDS, M.A., F.G.S.

On Human and Animal Bones and Flints from a Cave at Oban, Argyleshire. By Professor TURNER.

All who are acquainted with the topography of Oban, Argyleshire, will remember that immediately behind the houses, which extend in a long row parallel to the sea-beach, an almost perpendicular wall of rock rises to a considerable height.

At the north end of the bay, near Burn Bank House, the rock rises abruptly from the road to the height of a little more than 40 feet. Ivy, mountain-ash, and black-thorn grew out of the chinks in the upper part of the face of the precipice. A bank of earth sloped from the road, at an angle of about 45°, halfway up the face of the rock. Growing out of this bank were several beach trees, none of which had attained any great size; the diameter of the root of the largest was not more than 18 inches.

In the summer of 1869, workmen in the employ of Mr. John Mackay, of Oban, were engaged in quarrying the north-west face of the rock for building purposes, and after penetrating about 15 feet into the substance of the rock, they opened into the deeper end of a cave filled with earth in which a number of bones were found. On the removal of more of the rock and of the bank of earth from its south-eastern aspect, the cave was more fully exposed, and the position and direction of its original entrance were ascertained.

The rock was a dull purple micaceous sandstone, through which ran thin partings of green sandy shale, and belongs, as my colleague Professor Geikie tells me, to an outlying area of the Old Red Sandstone.

The cave consisted of a chamber and an entrance-passage. The chamber was 11 feet high and the same in depth. The entrance-passage was 4 feet high and 9 feet long, and sloped from the entrance down to the floor of the chamber, which it joined at a decided angle. The mouth of the cave was thus higher than the floor of the chamber. It faced to the south, and about 20 feet in thickness of an embankment of earth had to be removed before the entrance was exposed. The cave was almost filled up with earth, in which were found numerous bones and flints.