this little island in accommodation to the existing level of land and water, it is one of several such structures from which it can be inferred that no change in the relation of the sea to the land has taken place on the western coast since the remote period when vitrification was practised in this country.

Dr. Scoular, whose studies in Celtic literature and antiquities have led him to take an interest in this subject, has called my attention to two works recently published, which would seem to throw a ray of historical light on the extreme antiquity of vitrified forts, although still probably coming far short of the period of their origin. In the Life of Columba, written by Adomnan about the year 680 (the founder of Iona having flourished about the year 570), there is repeated reference to a fortress of the Pictish king, Brudi, situate near the north-east end of Loch Ness. Brudi was converted by Columbus, who is described by Adomnan as paying a visit to the king in this munitio, or fortification. The reference to the site of the fort as being at some distance, although not far, from the banks of the river Ness, seems, in the estimation of Dr. Reeves, the editor of a recent edition of Adomnan's work, to point clearly to the vitrified fort of Craig Phadrick. "As this river (the Ness) has a very limited course," he remarks, "the circuit of inquiry for the situation of the dun is greatly narrowed; and there being but one spot within it which is answerable to the name, the identification may be regarded as nearly certain."

In his notes to the Dean of Lismore's Book, Mr. Skene endeavours, not unsuccessfully, to establish a connection between the names of a family of the Cruithne, the early settlers in the Highlands, and the vitrified forts of which they took possession. The Cruithne and the Scots were the two races which are believed to have entered as original elements into the population of Ireland and of the Highlands of Scotland, the former having preceded the latter. The Cruithne are supposed to have alone constituted the population of the Scottish Highlands before the sixth century. The Cruithne were pagans; and in 563 Columba came from Ireland to convert them to the Christian faith. They divided the Highlands with the Dalriadic Scots, who were Christians, and came over from Ulster, where the Scots had at an early period settled among the Cruithne of that province, and took possession of Cantyre, part of Argyle, and Lorn, &c. Says Mr. Skene,-"Cuchullin was of the race of the Cruithne, and belongs both to Ulster and to Scotland. In Ulster, his seat was

Dundealgan, and the scene of his exploits the district of Cuailagne and the mountains of Sleave Cuillin ; but even Irish tradition admits that he was reared by Scgathaig, in the isle of Skye, and here we have Dunsgathaig and the Cuillin Hills." But the passage in which Mr. Skene traces the names of the vitrified forts in the Great Glen, to one of the families of the Cruithne, is the following, which relates chiefly to the well-known fort mis-named Beregonium, near Dunstaffnage, and previously described. "The children of Uisneach were Cruithne, and must have preceded the Scots, for the great scene of the Scotch adventures are the districts of Lorn, Loch Awe, and Cowall, afterwards the possession of the Dalriadic Scots; thus, in the vicinity of Oban, we have Dun mhic Uisneachan, now corruptly called in guide-books, Dun mac Sniachan, a fort with vitrified remains; and here we have on Loch Etive, Glen Uisneach, and Suidhe Deardhuil. The names of the three sons of Uisneach were Ainle, Ardan, and Naoise; and it is remarkable that Adomnan, in his Life of St. Columba, written in the seventh century, appears to mention only three localities in connection with St. Columba's journey to the palace of the king of the Picts, near Loch Ness, and these are Cainle, Arcardan, and the flumen Nesae. Two vitrified forts in the neighbourhood of Loch Ness are called Dundeardhuil." In a note, Mr. Skene adds,-"It is remarkable that the ancient legends of Cuchullin and the sons of Uisneach connect them with those remarkable structures termed vitrified forts. Dun Scathaig, Dun mhic Uisneachan, and Dundheardhuil, are all vitrified forts, and the latter is a common name for them; there is probably a mythic meaning under this."

On a general view of the observed facts, it is not easy to discover the reason upon which the author of the Prehistoric Annals of Scotland grounds the conclusion, which, he says, is "inevitable," that the vitrification of these edifices was accidental and not designed. Whatever obscurity may rest upon the method by which the cementation was effected, and upon the purpose which the edifices were intended to serve, whether as places of security and defence; or, what is greatly less probable in some cases, and in others simply impossible, of mere signal stations; their unique character, and the uniform result of the unknown process, would lead to a conclusion the very reverse. any one who examines them with an unprejudiced eye, they present the most unequivocal evidences alike of studied design and efficient execution. Thirty years since, Dr. Hibbert invoked the assistance

To

of the Scandinavian archeologists in solving the problem of their existence and uses, expecting that similar edifices would be found on the hill tops in Norway; but no response has as yet been given to his appeal, from which it may be inferred that no such erections have been discovered in that country. Apart from the peculiarity of their structure, the extreme antiquity of the remains is made apparent by the great depth of the soil accumulated over the walls, even in the most exposed situations. Little more can be affirmed with certainty as to the age to which they belong, than that it must have preceded the period when the use of calcareous mortar was introduced in masonry in Scotland. But if the data be so deficient for forming a conclusive judgment as to the precise method of vitrification and the uses which the structures were intended to serve, there is not even a vestige of evidence upon which a probable conjecture can be founded as to the race by whom they were erected. Whether they are the works of the original Caledonians or of the Scandinavian invaders, is a question upon which the investigations of modern times are incapable of throwing light, or which, at least, antiquarians have ceased for a quarter of a century to discuss with any prospect of reaching a satisfactory issue. The narrower the range of matter-of-fact inquiry, the wider the scope for the imagination; and the baffled antiquary may well be content to resign to the poet the task of creating a history for those venerable relics upon which the traditions of ages are silent, and which call up in the mind of the wanderer in some of the loneliest and loveliest scenes of the Scottish Highlands, images of a past as shadowy and undefined as the gray mists that float around their summits.

NOTE. The writer has been favoured with the following remarks by Mr. James Napier, chemist, whose practical knowledge of the different fusibility of rocks gives weight to his opinion on the subject of the vitrifying process:-"There are a few things I wished to have had time to refer to in your paper on the vitrified forts. I understood you to say that the vitrification extended to a considerable depth in the walls. Now this is an important fact that necessitates certain conditions. The idea which seemed to prevail was that a great body as well as intensity of heat was necessary. If this was the case these forts could not be standing as walls. If, for instance, you take a mass of whinstone, say two feet cube, and apply a strong body of heat to the mass, it does not yield like a piece of lead or other metal under the same circumstances, when the heat would be so

rapidly conducted through the whole that it would vitrify or fuse nearly all at one time; but the whinstone or other stone, is so bad a conductor that long before the vitrification penetrated one foot, all the external portion would be melted and run off. If it were done in a pit, or having a wall round it to prevent its flowing, then the same effect would be produced; at first, namely, before the internal parts of the mass were vitrified, the portion between the centre and walls would be in fusion, so that the outer part would be one homogeneous mass of glass, while the inside portion would be merely vitrified as your samples were. My impression is, from the samples I saw, that the heat has not been so intense as to melt or make the stone flow, but merely to vitrify it, for which a heat of 1400 to 1600 degrees would be sufficient; and all that was required to cause the vitrification to penetrate was not increase of heat, but a constant heat not exceeding what was required to vitrify the outside, keeping it up till it had penetrated to the required depth. Either this, or high heat under pressure, is the only condition I can suppose."

TRANSACTIONS OF THE GLASGOW ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

NO. XV.

NOTES ON PARTICK IN OLDEN TIMES :

BY

JAMES NAPIER, Esq.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 24th March, 1862.]

FROM many incidental notices found in charters granted to various parties, it is evident that Partick is a very old town, and has also been a place of considerable importance, not only to its proprietors, but to its more venerable and exalted neighbour, Glasgow, from its favourable position for water power for manufacturing purposes. Nevertheless, except these incidental notices, little or nothing of what may be termed the History of Partick is known.

A few years ago I was in great hopes of seeing it proven that Partick was once a seat of royalty. Chambers in his Caledonia refers to King Roderic, who was contemporaneous with St. Kentigern, having a seat at Pertmet, which the learned author says is "now Partick, a village on the Clyde below Glasgow." But from a series of papers in the Northern Notes and Queries, upon this and other kindred matters, I think it has been satisfactorily shown that the Pertmet where Roderic resided is not what is now called Partick, but a place in the neighbourhood of Rutherglen, which took its name from the same King Rutheric; I am therefore still necessitated to speak of Partick as a plebeian village, depending on its own rural beauties and local capabilities for any notoriety it may have attained.

In early charters and other notices of Partick the name is never spelt as we spell it, but differently, as Perdeyc, Perthic, Pertiq, Perthwick, Perdehic, &c. How and when it got the modern spelling I have not been able to ascertain; the nearest to it is in an old session-book of the sixteenth century, where a person the name of Craig belonging to the Walkmill of "Partic" is rebuked for non-attendance at the kirk on the Sabbath-day. In a document dated 1483, disposing of certain lands, it is spelt Perthik; while, in 1555, in a charter granted to John Stewart, fifth Provost