rest of his creed would be to tax the patience of the meeting, for his creed and his credulity seem co-extensive-rather wider and larger than usual. Leaving details, therefore, we come back to his conclusions, viz., that "the religious rites of the Celts, Scandinavians, and Teutons all sprang from one common source," and showed themselves but branches of the great stream which flowed from Asia into Europe, separating and again meeting, with characteristics of their original nature still sufficient to mark their kindred.

Mr. Pratt's train of reasoning may be thought illogical, ill supported, and unsatisfactory;-we may nevertheless feel willing to coincide with him in the result here stated. The idea is not a new one, but it is natural, and consistent with a course of well attested facts in the history of European nations and of mankind.

The many writers in this and other countries who have laboured to elaborate the scanty and obscure notices of the old Romans, and to construct from them and from observed remains interesting Druidical theories, have either not known or not ventured to account for the abundance of similar remains along the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea, in Persia, in India, in Mexico, in Honduras, and on the banks of the Mississippi.

Earth pyramids in England (as Silbury Hill, 170 feet high), smaller loose stone pyramids in Scotland, and huge ashlar stone pyramids in Egypt, may be equally assumed to have been constructed in honour of the opulent or otherwise greatly distinguished dead. Sepulchral mounds of all sizes, covering stone altars or only clay urns, may be reasonably supposed as intended to mark the last remains of those who had been respected in their lives, and whom their country or tribe, comrades or family, wished to be long kept in remembrance. We may conceive, as indeed we learn from old writers, that after battles the dead were sometimes placed on the ground surface in an oblong heap, and earth was raised over them, and afterwards the descendants of the victors added more earth. But the ordinary people of any country cannot be supposed, under common circumstances, to have been interred so ostentatiously or expensively. When, therefore, many cairns or mounds appear in one neighbourhood, we have to assume that either a battle has been fought, and the victors have seen fit to raise monuments at various places on the field, or that a large population had dwelt there, and that those structures point out the resting places of their great men, or otherwise, that the locality, having been deemed holy by the

inhabitants of adjoining districts, had been selected as their favourite cemetery.

The practice of depositing weapons of war, or articles of personal ornament, along with human remains has been about as extensively prevalent as the erection of stone and earth monuments. The reasons for it are probably only such as influence mankind to many unnecessary acts, thoughts, feelings, and habits, differing at different times-namely, the fancy or fashion of the period. The origin may have been of a sacred character, appealing to some religious ideas, or social, and denoting merely veneration for the deceased. We lament the absence of inscriptions to tell us more about the monuments and about the people who raised them. When and by whom they were constructed is a question we would like to have, but never yet have had satisfactorily answered. Authentic history fails to inform us distinctly, and the conjectures of our best authors in modern times-plausible and probable-have been, like pleadings in a court of law, controverted by opposing conjectures, equally probable. Possibly the truth may lie somewhere between.

Meanwhile, as to the particular relics before us, we may offer, with all submission, the following short remarks.

It has been laboriously tried by writers in this country and abroad to establish a good theory of eras or periods by classifying the tangible remains of antiquity, and exhibiting the general history of mankind in progressive stages of civilization,-as the stone, the bronze, the iron, and the Christian periods. The results, however, have been signally unsatisfactory. Alternating prosperity and adversity have been the lot of all communities; and even in periods of the highest national wealth individuals or multitudes are still poor. While the rich are furnished with the most refined works of high art, the poor supply themselves with implements and utensils of rude and homely character. It is useless to argue that because arrowheads of flint or bronze have come up from old graves, nobody in that district, at the same time, could have been possessed of a shining steel sword blade. We have to recollect that if the steel article had been deposited with the others it would moulder into powder or clay long before they became decomposed. A poor peasant might not be able to make or to purchase an iron axe, or chisel, or arrow-head; but he could by his own labour upon stone produce things almost equally serviceable. Bronze articles may not have been possessed abundantly by all classes, being more expensive than iron ones, yet

their quality of not requiring labour and care to keep them from deterioration by rust, and perhaps their showy gold-like colour under high polish, may have induced a desire for their acquisition. It seems absurd to assume that bronze was used prior to a time when people knew how to manufacture iron, or that the people of this country at any period were not acquainted with the simple uses of their own commonest ores, nor in communication with other people beyond seas who knew the capabilities of the metals.

Bronze articles found in Britain in ancient tombs have been frequently subjected to chemical analysis, and compared with similar articles found in other countries. The differences have been wonderfully small, and only serve to show that the composition had been the result of careful experiments for obtaining the desired qualities. Generally there has been ascertained about 85 to 88 per cent. of copper, and the rest tin and a little lead; this mixture producing the hardness, tenacity, and light colour of the bronze used for weapons.

As naturally arising from the subject, we may, in conclusion, offer the following explanations as to the names of the places where these relics were found.

The parochial statist of 1794 wondered "when the name Bathernock came to be written Baldernock," and, sheltering himself under the venerable authority of Tacitus and Mela, he ventured to affirm that old women "once lived together in sisterhoods, in sequestered spots, devoting their time to the offices of Druidical worship, and popularly called Auld Wives." Upon the supposition of this and of their wonderful "Lift," he assumed that Baldernock was a corruption of Baldruinich, which, he said, signified in the Celtic language, Town belonging to the Druids. His successor, as statist, in 1841, deemed the conclusion "highly probable." The Rev. Mr. M'Gregor, Stirling, an enthusiastic historian of Stirlingshire, affirms (see page 745 of his book), that Blochairn is Gaelic, and means milk and bread, and (page 63), Cartenbenach, an old name of Craigmaddie, means field of blessing. In his opinion, also, the place must have been Druidical, especially taking into account the Auld Wives; and matching them with Carlston, which, he says, is Gaelic for a "town of auld men," and points to another Druidical "settlement in this quarter." Dion Cassius, writing in the third century, averred that the Caledonians had their women in common; Herodian, in the fourth century, that the men and women of this country went about then, summer and winter, without any clothing; and St. Jerome, in the fifth century,

when sent as a missionary to Argyleshire, declined to remain long, because, according to his account, the natives ate human flesh. These averments, and much of what we read about the Druids, may be alike true, or they may be only alike fanciful, and intended for effect, as marvellous stories which travellers like to tell, and homefolks like to hear. Passing by the Druids, therefore, whose domain, for anything we know, may never have extended so far north as to Scotland, we think the following more probable interpretations of the words:

Baldernock is the same with Bathernock, the letter being in frequent use only to lengthen the vowel before it, and the d to be converted into the th; dorn passing into English, as thorn, and taking, in combination, the sound dern or thern; and the adjectival termination, ich, ig, ik, or ock, according to variety of dialect. Thus we have a town or set of buildings like a small village or a farm steading, in a locality where there were more brambles, briars, whins, or other rough plants growing than usual; or, Dern may be Daaren, the Norse word for deer, and Baldernock would then denote buildings in a place frequented by deer. Cartenbenach may give us the Saxon Kaer, or Danish Gaard, or German Gard, all originally pronounced alike, and meaning a castle or any building having an enclosed court; and benach, strong of bone, to imply that the castle has been strongly built. Craigmaddie, the other name of the place, may indicate Maiden Craig, as a popular boast of the strength of the fortress. Bardowie, Bal-Er-dui, the proprietor's house in a lovely or shaded situation. Er is the same as Herr, and dui was an adjective common to the Celts and the Scandinavians and other Teutonsits present form with the latter is dunkel. Blochairn, Baloch-Ern, houses belonging to the lord of the manor. Blairskaith, Bal-ErSkaith, indicates a place where the proprietor had suffered loss, as in a battle. Fluchtart, or Fluchter, the place or course of the flight. The Saxon or Danish etymons are flucht, flight; fluchten, to fly; also flugt and flygte. Carlston may have been the servants' or slaves' house; or if built later than the days of bondage, the Farmer's houses, or Charles's houses, or lot of land.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE GLASGOW ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

NO. XIV.

ON THE REMAINS OF A VITRIFIED FORT, OR SITE, IN THE ISLAND OF CUMBRAE, WITH NOTES ON THE VITRIFIED FORTS OF BERIGONIUM, GLEN NEVIS, CRAIG PHADRICK, PORTENCROSS, AND BUTE:

BY

WILLIAM KEDDIE, Esq.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 7th January, 1862.]

THE most conspicuous monuments of the past in the Cumbrae Isles are geological rather than archæological. The two lofty trap dykes rising through the sandstone rocks, on the south side of the larger island, are memorials of a period when the land was elevated above the water to a height indicated by their altitude above the present high-tide level. The remarkable network of similar dykes traversing the island points to a period still more remote in geological time, when the sedimentary deposits of sandstone (probably belonging to the old red series), enveloping the shores of the mainland, were broken up by the intrusion of rocks of igneous origin, now constituting the whole of the lesser island, with the exception of a few patches of sandstone on the southern shore, showing that before their removal by denudation, the beds of these sedimentary strata were continuous with those seen in section on the tall wooded cliffs of Hunterston and Portencross. But the Cumbraes are not devoid of objects of antiquarian interest associated with the human era. Several tumuli on the islands are usually assigned to the period of the Danish invasion under Haco of Norway, in 1263. A tumulus or cairn of loose stones on the shore of the larger island, opposite to Largs, has been opened and partly dispersed. One of several cairns on the little. island, was examined about half a century ago by the then Earl of Eglinton; and two of the inhabitants of Millport, still living, who were present on the occasion, remember that human bones and teeth, together with some pieces of armour, were taken out of the excavation. The square tower or peel, occupying a peninsula on the south