not-some dolmens, as in India, being, indeed, on the top of the mound; we find circles with avenues leading into them, and we find them with menhirs and with trenches. And there may be a combination of two or more of these along with circles. Further, it is amply clear that circles, avenues, dolmens, and menhirs were set up independent of any earth mounds or cairns.

A more particular description of the Inverness-shire stone circles will tend greatly to elucidate the subject, more especially as these circles are so numerous, so well preserved on the whole, and so definite in their character and development. The Inverness and Strathnairn circles have been exhaustively mapped and described by Mr Fraser, C.E., of Inverness, in a paper to the local Field Club, and to him I am in the main indebted for measurements and details. There are altogether twenty-five circles, more or less preserved, within the water-shed of the Nairn, and some twelve or fourteen between that and the River Ness, and extending as far as Loch-Ness. The principal stone circles and remains are at Tordarroch, Gask, Clava, Newton of Petty, Druid Temple, and Dores. The general characteristics of these circles are these: (1) They consist of three concentric rings of undressed boulder or flag stones, fixed on end. (2) The outer ring varies in diameter from 60 to 126 feet-averaging 96 feet, and consists of long stones, from nine to twelve in number, set at nearly regular intervals, the tallest being at the south side, and the size gradually diminishing towards the north side of the circle. (3) The middle ring varies from 22 to 88 feet-average being 53 feet-in diameter, and consists of smaller boulders-few flags being used-set on end close together, with a slight slope towards the centre of the circle, and their best and flattest face outward. The largest stones are here again on the south side, and the smallest on the north. (4) A third and central ring, concentric with the other two, from 12 to 32 feet in diameter-averaging 19 feet-consists of stones or flags set on end close together. Of course the accuracy of the concentricity of the circles cannot be depended on; they are often slightly eccentric. They are built on low-lying or flat ground as a rule, and where stones are abundant. An entrance or "avenue" to the inmost ring can be distinguished in four or five cases only, and its direction varies from s. 5° E. to s. 41° w., the average direction being that of the sun at one o'clock. It is only at Clava, and only in two cases there, that chambers are found constructed on the innermost ring, and bounded by the middle ring. But three others present traces of a cairn of stones having existed between the middle and innermost rings, which we may call ring cairns,

but no sign of an entrance passage; while two which have an avenue or passage (Croftcroy and Druid Temple) do not present any clear traces of ever having had a cairn-certainly not the Druid Temple circles. As to the process of building them, it would seem as if the outer ring was set up first, and the other two rings thereafter, while any chambered or ring cairn would be built on these as a foundation.

Another interesting series of stone circles exists in Badenoch and Upper Strathspey. The principal circles are at Delfoor, Ballinluig, Aviemore, and Tullochgorm-half-a-dozen altogether They all partake more or less of the ring cairn type; there is an outer circle from 70 to 101 feet in diameter; a middle one from 40 to 62; and an inner with a diameter varying from about 12 to 25 feet-average, 20 feet. The outer ring is in every case unfortunately incomplete, but it appears to average ten or eleven stones, the largest of which, some nine feet high, are to the south, and the lowest on the north side. The circle at Grainish, two miles north of Aviemore Station, is typical of the rest, and, indeed, typical of all these ring cairns. This circle has been known for a century or more. "Ossian" Macpherson, and his other namesake, Rev. John Macpherson, speak of it as "Druidic," and in this the historian of Moray, Lachlan Shaw, agrees with them. Dr Arthur Mitchell describes it in the tenth volume of the Society of Antiquaries' Transactions, but gives an inaccurate idea of it in his drawing. The outer ring, 101 feet in average diameter, is represented by two fallen stones-9 and 7 feet long respectively, while five others can be detected by their fragments and the holes in the ground where they stood. The stones themselves, being granite, were, of course, appropriated for building purposes at no very remote date. second circle is, with the exception of a gap or two, complete. The heaviest stones are to the south, and it is the same with the inmost circle. The middle circle has diameters of 62 and 59 feet, while the inner has a uniform diameter of 25 feet. The cairn has fallen to some extent into the internal open space. The depth of the cairn is about four feet, and that also is the height of the highest stones of the second ring. There is no trace of any passage entering to the interior open space through the ring cairn, any more than there is trace of such in the Inverness circles of the same ring cairn kind at Clava, Culdoich, and Gask. It is, moreover, abundantly clear that this cairn was never much other than it is now; there never was a chamber erected on the innermost circle, for, were this so, the stones would undoubtedly have still remained, as the place is a long way from cultivated land, and

The

from any habitations. Within thirty yards of it, to the south, there is a low barrow, enclosed by a circle of small stones; it is quite round, and 18 feet in diameter. There are several such around here, not far from the circles, all partaking of the same type. Most of them have been disturbed. The Strathspey Gaelic name for these stone circles and cairns is "Na carrachan," which implies a nominative singular "car," evidently from the same root as cairn.

The examination and study of these Inverness-shire circles and rude stone monuments raise the most important questions as to the intention and the plan of construction of stone circles. The three concentric circles seem developed, architecturally speaking, from the chamber cairn, encircled at its base, and with another circle at a distance. The next step would seem to have been the ring cairn. Possibly the reason for the ring cairn may consist in the fact that the builders could not, on their bee-hive system, and with the stones they used, as seen in the chambered cairns at Clava, construct chambers on so large a diameter as all the undoubted ring cairns have in their innermost circle, such as those of Clava, Gask, Grainish, and Delfoor, all of which are over 20 feet in diameter. The third step might have been to drop the building of the ring cairn, which would thus leave the three concentric circles, so peculiar in their character, in that they have a middle circle evidently designed for forming an outer ring intended to bound a cairn so as to keep it together. Druid Temple at Leys, Inverness, presents a good example of stone circles evidently not completed by cairn of any kind, and yet having traces of avenue, which so few of them have. It also shows the state of preservation in which the ravages of time and the last century or two of stone-building have left these monuments of a remote antiquity.

In regard to the purpose of building these structures, the answer which the interrogation of them gives to the inquirer depends mainly on his individual theories. The construction of the central and middle circle, I believe, is developed from the chambered cairn, but it is in regard to the outer circle that the real difficulty exists. What is the purpose of it? The chambered cairns are, by most antiquarians, connected with burial, though other theories, as we shall see, are held. In any case, burial deposits and urns were found in the Clava chambered cairns, a fact which connects them somehow with burial. It does not appear that the other circles have been yet scientifically explored; at any rate burial deposits have not been found except in the

doubtful instances of Druid Temple and Gask. An urn was found in a gravel cutting near the former, and bits of bone have been found in the debris which lies in the interior of the latter.

In Ireland, besides the famous mound of New Grange, with its surrounding circle of monoliths, and the several other mounds on the Boyne, where, according to old Irish history, repose the fairy heroes of Ireland's golden age--the Dagda and his compeers, in whom modern research recognises the old deities of the Gael— besides these there are the "battlefields" of the two Moyturas, the "tower fields" as the name means, which are literally strewn with circles, mounds, and stones. The stone circles here are often alone, and often in connection with the mounds, cairns, and dolmens. It was on these Moytura plains that the fairy heroes overcame their foes of ocean and of land-the Fomorians and the Fir-bolgs; so Irish history says, and the dates of these events are only some nineteen centuries before our era! In England, several good specimens of stone circles still remain in the remote districts, districts such as Cornwall and Cumberland; they are often single circles unattended by any other structure; but there is a tendency toward their existing in groups, some circles intersecting one another even-such groups as at Botallick in Cornwall, Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, and others. The most famous stone monuments in England, or in these Isles, are those of Stonehenge and Avebury. The remains at Avebury, from the immense size of the outer circle (1200 feet) and its external rampart, its remains of two sets of contiguous circles, each set being formed of two concentric rings of stones, and its two remarkable avenues of stone, each of more than a mile in length, the one winding to the south-east, the other to the south-west-these remains have brought Avebury into rivalry with Stonehenge, with which it contests the honour of having been, as some think, vaguely heard of by the Greeks before the Christian era. Stonehenge, however, though much less in extent-its outer circle is only 100 feet in diameter, which is just about the average of the outer circles of Inverness-shire--is much better preserved and much better known. It differs in various ways from the usual type of circles and their accompaniments, though preserving the general features. In the first place the stones are "dressed so far as to render them more suitable for contact with, or superimposition of, other stones. Stonehenge is therefore not quite a "rude stone monument." This dressing of the stones was connected with another, though less unique, feature of these circles. This is what is known as the trilithons, These are composed of two upright pillar stones set