Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/553

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App C.
ANTIQUITIES OF CAITHNESS.
527

4. 'Correspondenten,' June 23, 1847. — The burial-urn has been found in the grave-chamber. Also have turned up bones of men, horses, dogs, a golden ornament delicately worked, a bone comb, bone buttons, &c.

5. 'Correspondenten,' July 3, 1847. — The gallery has been driven 4 feet farther, thereafter has been made a side gallery, 8 feet wide and 8 feet long, up to the burial-urn. This was found 3 inches under the soil, and was covered with a thin slab. It was 7 inches high, 9 inches in diameter, filled with burnt bones, human and animal (horse, dog, &c.), ashes, charcoal (of needle and leaf trees), nails, copper ornaments, bone articles, a bird of bone, &c. In the mass of charcoal about were found bones, broken ornaments, bits of two golden bracteates, &c. Coins of King Oscar were then placed in the urn, and everything restored as before.

Frey's Howe was opened, and showed the same results.


The gallery remained for some years, and was visited by thousands of persons, but afterwards fell in, and the howe is now inaccessible.

Carl Säve.

Upsala, March 1, 1871.


APPENDIX C.

Since the sheets containing the account of the Scottish monuments were printed off, I have received from Sir Henry Dryden slips of two letters which he addressed to the editor of the John o' Groat's Journal, giving an account of some explorations he had made in Caithness during this autumn. One of these contains an account of certain chapels, brochs, and circles he had examined. The first two classes do not concern us here, and are therefore omitted; but the circles are of interest as probably belonging to the same category as those in the Orkneys, and the description of them is consequently printed with the other letter, which gives an account of four alignments which are so germane to our subject that Sir Henry's description is printed in extenso. The name of the first, "The Battle Moss, Yarhouse," is of itself singularly suggestive, and I have little doubt that, if properly inquired into, the peasantry could tell what battle was fought there, and what, consequently,