of an ancient wall round the edge of the large plateau is marked on the O.M., but I could see no sign of it, looking down from the fort.

General Dimensions.-The upper area, from crest to crest of the slight ridging at the edge, measures about 185 ft. in length by 105 in greatest breadth, which is towards the W. end of the oval space. At the corresponding part of the E. end the width narrows to 65 ft. Measured over all, 'the nipple' with its terraced or trenched sides comes out 325 by 240 ft. on the plan.

The Fortifications as revealed by Excavation.-As we have shown, the green top and sides give no clear indication of a rampart, but shortly before 1799, Dr Playfair, digging in from the outer slope horizontally through 21 ft. of ruins, came upon a part of what he, without hesitation, calls "Macbeth's strong rampart of stone," ," "cemented with red mortar"; "as entire as when it was originally constructed, founded on the rock, and neatly built of large stones." Passing to the excavation by Mr Nairne about sixty years later, it is amazing, after Dr Playfair's experiences, to find Dr Wise describing and figuring the fortification of the top as an earthen vallum, 20 ft. broad at the base and tapering to a height of 10 or 12 ft. (fig. 43).

AA

Fig. 43. Sectional View of Dunsinnan. (Dr Wise.)

But however this error arose, it may be confidently asserted that no such rampart ever existed, and Mr Stewart's MS. account of the 1854 excavations amply confirms Dr Playfair's description in all respects but one. Mr Stewart relates that the workmen, going in from the outside, cut through a mass 21 ft. thick, finding a wall "strongly built of large stones, both inside and out, while the filling in is a mass of loose stones, entirely without manipulation or mortar." We may dismiss as fanciful, therefore, the red mortar' of Playfair, who was probably misled, as will afterwards appear, by finding red clay among the ruins. Thus the wall of Dunsinnan falls into line with the well ascertained walls of the other Scottish stone forts that have been properly investigated. Mr Stewart gives no section along with his plan (given in outline, fig. 42), but I have constructed a section (fig. 44) from his very clear description which will aid the reader, as we proceed, in understanding the position of the wall and interior buildings. I need only point out just now the position of the wall at E.

Entrance. At present there is a very distinct entrance at the N.E. corner, penetrating obliquely through the defences to the central area, and this entrance is distinctly mentioned in the Old Statistical Account of 1798. It must have

existed, therefore, at the time of Nairne's excavation, and a statement by Mr Stewart that the wall was traced all round without finding an entrance, must be intended to apply only to the stone wall. This is quite likely, as there was certainly no entrance through the inner stone walls, at least near their base, at Forgandenny and Abernethy forts.

Interior Buildings.-Dr Playfair states that, "having diligently explored the

area, now 3 ft. below the surface, and cut a deep trench across it," he found no vestige of building, but he cannot have gone deep enough, as the excavations of 1854 revealed much building at the E. end of the area.

Here again Dr Wise, misled by his imaginary vallum, regarded the chambers found as underground, i.e., beneath the original floor of the fort; but Mr Stewart shows in the clearest manner that they stood on the floor. Reverting to my section (fig. 44), constructed from his description, the rock floor, DD, is seen sloping up gradually to the centre of the fort: on this stands the wall of fortification, E, and within it the chambers, F F, and a passage, H, between them and the wall, besides the "Quern Chamber," G, the whole enveloped in a mass of ruins and covered by accumulated earth, etc., under the grassy surface, A B C. Unfortunately, the construction of these chambers remains quite doubtful. The plans (figs. 42 and 43) of Dr Wise and Mr Stewart are utterly irreconcilable, and equally so are their descriptions, Dr Wise giving them a rounded figure with converg ing walls and no mortar, while Mr Stewart declares that they are all square, with perpendicular walls, and that, although the fort wall had no mortar, "yet all the square buildings contain considerable quantities of red mortar." His

Fig. 44. Excavated Wall and Buildings, Dunsinnan (from Mr. Stewart's description

expressions on this point are rather obscure, as if he had not seen this mortar actually joining the stones, but only lying about, and he probably really means clay, as he uses the term mortar very loosely, in another sentence speaking of "an admixture of decomposed bones and charcoal of wood" as "a compound

mortar."

It will be observed that Mr Stewart gives on his plan several remains of buildings not noticed in Dr. Wise's account.” A mass of ruin on the S. he considered on very slender grounds to have been a tower, and two passages leading to it he regarded as the only early British works, because they alone had converging walls. He also says that “within one half of a large circular opening towards the west of the area, which seems to have been an open court, foundation walls still stood a foot high, but that the other half contained none.

Vitritaction, -Dr Playfair makes no mention of vitrifaction, and Williams, the original discoverer of vitrified forts, and Knox declare there was none; but Wise found some deep in the excavations of the chambers; Laing also dug out several pieces, and Stewart asserts, not only that the whole ruins on the top were full of vitrified stones, but that many stones of the wall were fused with trap rock, sandstone, and quartz into one lump. This reads as if vitrified blocks

were used in the masonry, and not as meaning that the wall was vitrified. On the whole there can hardly be a doubt that the wall was not vitrified, although vitrified blocks, either brought from a distance or taken from an older fort on the same site, may have been used as building material.

Water Supply.--The excavators found no trace of any within the fort, but springs exist not far off down the hill, and Stewart speaks of a 'Flatt' immediately below the rampart wall to the S., covered by a "body of red mortar" (clay ?)" which may have been a water tank."

The Finds consisted of (1) a quern in a fixed position in one of the chambers. (2) A spiral bronze finger ring, described by the Rev. Thomas Brown as of most perfect workmanship, in the form of a serpent, the eyes and scales on the back carved regularly and very minutely. It was kept by Mr Nairne, but in a year was lost. (3) And, on the authority of Mr Robert Chambers, two round tablets of metal resembling brass, one of them engraved with the legend: "The sconce of kingdom come until sylphs in air carry me again to Bethel."

Conclusions. It is much to be regretted that the excavations were so imperfect and so unscientifically conducted and reported; but on the whole we may conclude that Dunsinnan was defended round the top by a dry stone wall of the ordinary fort type and on the slopes by additional works, now assuming the aspect of slightly trenched or level terraces, the true character of which has still to be ascertained. Also, that it contained much building, the ruins of which, with the accumulated soil of centuries, favoured by burnt timber, of which many traces remained, brought the top to a nearly uniform level, completely burying both wall and buildings: that the evidence as to the form and structure of the buildings is contradictory and quite unreliable: that the same may be said as to the presence of mortar, by which probably clay was meant that the few relics cast no clear light on the origin of the building: and finally that there is nothing to separate Dunsinnan from the class of ordinary Scottish forts of dry

masonry.

41. Denoon Law. The work here is a somewhat questionable example of a stone fort, as I could only see faint evidence of rubble work rather than building in the very few breaks in the massive green rampart. But Dr Playfair and Mr Knox both state distinctly that the wall was built of stone without cement, and the absence of trenches, the presence of a stone threshold at the entrance, as well as the whole aspect of the enceinte, is that of a stone rather than an earthen fort.

The position is on the W. side of Denoon Glen, here a broad open valley, but at some distance from the stream, 24 m. S.W. of Glamis Church, and 689 ft, above the sea.

The Law stands up conspicuously from every near point of view, being quite isolated and 100 ft. in height. The sides are steep, and the south-eastern ascent ends in a line of precipice, on the edge of which the fort stands (fig. 45). The area of the fort occupies the whole of the level top, and hence has a squarish oval form, and is girt by a single mound, massive and lofty at the N.E. end and on the N.W. face, where for a considerable stretch it is no less than 10 to 14 ft. high inside, a very unusual elevation, the base here, however, being probably natural. But even at the precipice edge on the S.E. the rampart is

1 Picture of Scotland, Robert Chambers, 1528.

evident that it is really an oval work, with one small crescentic annex on the N. and another large one on the S., springing from the same points of the oval. The fort proper measures 330 by 250 ft. over all. The greatly dilapidated wall is generally grass-covered, and only rises a foot or two above the surface. A wall I believe, however, it has been, as on the W. side a row of large stones, extending about 100 ft. southward and closely set, can hardly be anything else than the base of an outer casing, and a less complete row shows the position of the inner face, giving a width for the wall of from 9 to 11 ft. There are basal stones, also, here and there along the S. face, where the

mound is 27 ft. wide, perhaps from digging operations to remove the stones; and some very large stones have been torn from their place and taken a short dist ince as if for carting away. The N. and E. sides have been almost completely destroyed, and are merely traceable. The enclosing mounds of the annexes are not defensive; they are very low, only 6 or 7 it. wide, and are probably ruined walls.

39. The Lairs, on the Lars Hill, Drumsturdy, an outlying eminence rather than a part of the Sidlaws proper, is situated 14 m. N. by W. of Monifieth Church, 131 ft, above the sea. The site is on a small isolated height, partly

precipitous, the easiest access being at its E. end, and the fort occupied the whole of the nearly level top.

This fort, not so long ago perhaps the best preserved in Scotland, has been so knocked about, and the records of it are so confused and contradictory, that to form any intelligible idea of it, difficult enough at the best, is impossible without some reference to its modern history. The earliest notice, published in the Trans. R. Soc. of Lit. in a paper dated 1827, but from observations made about 1790, is by Dr John Jamieson, who described an outer wall, 500 paces in circumference, near the bottom of the hill on the E., slanting gradually up the southern slope till half-way between the summit and the brink of the precipice on that side, and continuing to ascend as it circled round till it reached the N.E. corner where one entrance was, another being apparently at the W. end. It is strange that no one else seems to have noticed this low-level outer wall, but perhaps it may have been covered by the operations to be described immediately. The inner wall, according to Dr Jamieson, surrounded the summit at a distance of several paces from the outer one, but varying according to the nature of the ground. He also mentions two or three other short walls running from the outer one to the brink of the precipice.

In 1859 Mr Neish, at that time the proprietor, excavated the site, and the results are recorded, with additional notes by John Stuart, in vol. iii. of our Proc., pp. 440-54. Mr Neish states that before 1834 great quantities of stones were carried off for farm purposes, and Mr Stuart estimates, on the authority of a man who took part in the spoliation, that 9600 cartloads were removed in the four winters ending 1818. The author of the Statistical Account of the Parish, 1842, confirms this by the statement that persons then alive remembered when the ruins were 5 ft. higher than when he wrote.

Mr Neish also states that in 1834 the whole surface was levelled and portions of the wall thrown over near the E. end. Finally came his own excavations in 1859, the discharge of the rubbish from which seems to have been down the hill at the S.E. corner.

I have found it impossible to form a connected idea of the disposition and nature of the fortifications from Mr Neish's account of his excavations and the very sketchy plan. But for the difficulties and anomalies suggested by these, and if I had trusted to my own observations on the spot alone, I should have had no hesitation in pronouncing the work to have been an ordinary stone fort of excellent dry masonry with a duplication of the wall at each end if not at the sides and without reckoning the no longer visible outer wall of Dr Jamieson.

The only part that I had time to study and measure with some care was the E. end, where Mr Neish's excavations were either most thorough, or are best preserved. As shown in my plan and section (fig. 39), the first thing met with from the outside is a terrace, D, 15 ft. wide, at the edge of the descent. Mr Neish explains that this was formed by the rubbish thrown out in the levelling operations of 1834 and in his own work. I may add that a pleasant terrace walk runs all round outside the wall, and probably is everywhere due to the

same cause.

1 A main difficulty in understanding Mr Neish's description arises from his treating the place as an area divided into irregular spaces by wall faces instead of as a fortification surrounded by walls.