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

side of the little island, although of considerable antiquity, evidently belongs to a later age than the supposed Danish relics. The most elevated portion of this island is surmounted by the old lighthouse tower, which was erected in 1750, being illuminated by the primitive expedient of burning coals in a grating upon the summit. The tower is strongly constructed, and may stand for ages, to contrast the earliest method of warning off vessels at sea from this exposed and iron-bound coast, with the improved apparatus subsequently employed in the Cumbrae and other lighthouses; and when its original history has been forgotten, and the lichen-covered walls have been converted by the future archæologist into the remains of an ancient feudal keep, and associated with the memories of roving pirates and chieftains of the isles, the future geologist will be not a little interested in the thick deposit of fragments of coal and cinders surrounding the edifice, and which will no doubt suggest to his equally vivid fancy the unexpected discovery in this isolated spot of an outlier of the great coal formation, extending from the valley of the Clyde into the adjacent territory of Ayrshire. In addition to these antiquities, present and prospective, the good people of Millport are in the habit of pointing out the remains of a cathedral, which tradition assigns to a secluded nook behind the village; but when the supposed ruins were examined, they were found to be composed of huge fragments of a trap dyke, abutting upon a valley where the sea has evidently once flowed, and bounding a ridge behind the village, which elevation was at that period probably insulated, like one of the chain of islets now closing in the bay of Millport, and named the Allens. At the further extremity of this valley, in an upland wood traversed by the Ferry Road, there is a prostrate monolith, which in its erect position was an attractive object to visitors to the island in former years. This venerable monument, which it would cost little to restore to the upright position, was overturned a few years since by some mischievous persons from Glasgow.

The islands and their shores possess many attractions to the student of natural history. The writer and a friend resident in Millport were taking their last botanical walk at the close of September, 1861, after having devoted the most of the leisure of two seasons to examining the flowering and other plants of Cumbrae, when they came accidentally upon the remains of a structure of still greater antiquity than the memorials of the Scandinavians, and belonging not to the historic, but to the pre-historic age. As Macculloch, the

geological explorer of the Clyde and western islands, would have phrased it, in his antithetical manner, they were in quest of a fungus, and they stumbled upon a fort. Behind the Ferry-house opposite to the west end of Largs, a mound rises abruptly, formed by the termination of one of the largest of the trap dykes which cross the island, and rendered conspicuous on the shore by being densely clothed with trees and brushwood. On a previous visit, the occurrence on the declivity of the mound of some pieces of burnt and vesicular stone, resembling the scoria thrown out of the steamboats, merely suggested a passing thought as to how they could be conveyed to this isolated ridge; but on the present occasion attention was attracted not only to scattered pieces of scorified stone, but to fragments of different kinds of rock, and especially of sandstone and greenstone or trap, agglutinated together by the fusion of the latter mineral. Some degree of familiarity with similar appearances in the vitrified forts or sites of the West Highlands induced us to examine the face of the mound, in the hope of discovering that these fragments had been detached from a vitrified wall. Nor was our search in vain; although faintly traceable in some places, and covered over by a deep deposit of soil in others, portions of the wall were readily detected. The outline of the structure could be followed along the verge of the cliff overlooking the sea, and on the opposite part of the ridge, forming two sides of a parallelogram; the lower side being only partially indicated, while the upper was lost in the accumulated soil, and overgrown with trees and brambles. Fragments separated from the wall (here exhibited) possess the characteristic marks common to specimens from the vitrified forts at Berigonium, Craig Phadrick, Glen Nevis, and Bute, (also produced for the purpose of comparison). The constituents are portions of the neighbouring rocks, of moderate size, principally trap, with inclosed fragments of sandstone; limestone, which also occurs in the island, not having been detected. The vitrified external surface bears some resemblance to the slag of an iron-smelting furnace, or to a coarse black glass. Some portions of the trap are porous and vesicular, from the escape of gases in the process of fusion, and so light as to be capable of floating on water; others are compact, exhibiting a smooth glossy fracture; and not unfrequently, in edifices of this description, the fused trap, on slowly cooling, has assumed the prismatic or columnar form. Of the different vitrified forts already named, that of Cumbrae is on the smallest scale. Its exact dimensions could not be ascertained with