merchant princes and men of acknowledged position and experience devoted themselves to civic affairs, so their successors in time to come will show that there is no decadence in public spirit, but that the sentiments of duty and of patriotism are sufficient to ensure that every one shall recognise the obligations of burghal life, and bear his fair share of its duties and responsibilities.

ART. IV. ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE SOUTH-WEST OF SCOTLAND.

1. Archæological and Historical Collections Relating to the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. Vols. I., II., III., IV. Edinburgh, 1878-1881.

2. Ancient Scottish Lake-Dwellings, or Crannogs, with Supplementary Chapter on Remains of Lake-Dwellings in England. By ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D., &c. Edinburgh, 1882. HE antiquaries of Ayr and Wigton have set an example which deserves to be followed in every other county in Scotland. Having, in the year 1877, formed themselves into a society for the purpose of preserving some records of the various pre-historic and mediæval remains of antiquity,' in their two counties, they have since carried on their work with admirable spirit and success. One or two attempts have been made to publish Collections' relating to other of the Scottish shires, and invaluable services have been rendered to the study of antiquity by the publications, among others, of the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, and by those of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; but so far as we are aware, no other society of a precisely similar nature exists in the country. A proposal to form one for the County of Renfrew has, we hear, been recently mooted, but any definite steps towards its formation have not, we believe, as yet been taken. We are glad to learn, however, that the antiquities of this important county

able preparations have already been made for the publication of a series of volumes illustrative of them, somewhat after the plan of those of the Ayr and Wigton Association. This is well; but we are disposed to think that a work like this should not be left to private effort. It is a work in which the public have, or ought to have, the greatest interest, and one, too, which, in order to be successfully carried on in all its branches, ought to be supported from the local private purse. Publishers, moreover, cannot, and ought not to be expected to superintend the researches and excavations which are requisite for the unearthing of the many and valuable remains of antiquity which the county unquestionably contains. This is, properly speaking, the work of a society of skilled antiquaries, and ought to be carried on by means of funds provided for the purpose by private liberality. That the institution of such societies throughout the country would be of immense service, need hardly be said. The very least they could do would be to preserve and describe such monuments and remains of antiquity as are already known, and which, unless means be at once taken for their preservation, will speedily be swept away. That the members of the Ayr and Wigton Archæological Association have a large and interesting field before them, and that they are quite alive to the fact, is manifest from the following words of the Rev. Geo. Wilson, the Honorary Secretary for Wigtonshire, respecting the antiquities of his own County :

'Comparatively little,' he says, 'has yet been done in the way of publishing detailed descriptions of these antiquities. The late lamented Dr. John Stuart made a noble beginning on the subject of our lake-dwellings in his account of the Crannogs in Dowalton Loch. Some notices have

been published of implements of stone and bronze, of stone cists, and of some of the standing-stones. But no detailed account, and in many cases no account at all, has yet been published of many monuments of antiquity, which are very remarkable. There are cairns worthy of detailed description, and there is one in particular which seems to be quite unique in structure. There are standing-stones not yet described in any book. In the Rhinns, Glenluce, and Mochrum alone, there are about fifty ancient forts. Some of the most interesting of these are not marked in the Ordin

yet been published, so far as I know. The same remark applies to our numerous hut-circles, and to the sites of several ancient towns or villages, some of which are fortified. Not one of the many caves on our rocky seacoast has been searched to ascertain if it contains any pre-historic relics, and if so, whether they are deposited in successive layers. The excavation of the Borness Cave, near Kirkcudbright, shows that much may possibly be found in some of them. There are shell-heaps on or near the sea-shore, worth examining.

There are also curious mounds of a horse

shoe form, which I have only seen in Glenluce, and which have not been noticed in other districts. My note-book contains details on most of these subjects, but I find it difficult to prepare accurate plans and drawings.'*

The County of Ayr offers an equally promising field of discovery, and when further examined will undoubtedly yield still more numerous and interesting relics of its ancient inhabitants, and will in all probability enable the local archæologists to throw yet more abundant light on the manners and customs of those dim shadows of the past, the Brythonic, Goidelic, and Ivernian tribes by which it was once peopled.

So far as they have gone, the publications of the Ayr and Wigton Archæological Association are excellent, and reflect the greatest credit on all concerned in their production. The wood engravings with which they are profusely illustrated are especially deserving of notice, being among the finest we have seen; while the historical documents now brought together, or published for the first time, are at once curious, instructive, and valuable.

The contents of the other volume whose title we have placed at the head of this article had already appeared in successive volumes of the Archæological and Historical Collections, and their publication in their present handy and accessible form is another instance of the public spirit by which the Association is animated. To his original reports, Dr. Munro has here wisely added a resumé of the observations made by previous writers and explorers, and has thus given to the public a complete compendium of all that is actually known of ancient British lake-dwellings up to the present time. Of the way in which he has performed his work, it is needless to speak. His

Archaeological and Historical Collections Relating to the Counties of Ayr

volume is a monument of painstaking and enlightened research in one of the most difficult and fascinating branches of archæological study.

Our intention, however, is less to criticise these volumes. than to give some account of their valuable and interesting contents. Their ecclesiastical and historical contents we must for the present pass over, and confine ourselves to those which may be termed pre-historic.

Of the River-drift hunters or Cave-men no remains seem as yet to have been found either in Ayrshire or in Wigtonshire. Stone implements have been met with in abundance, but none of them, so far as we can learn, can with certainty be referred to an earlier age than the neolithic. Further research may result in the discovery of such as can be referred to the earlier period; but as yet none of the river valleys of the two counties have been systematically examined, and, with a single exception, none of their caves or rock-shelters have. The exception is the Hunterston rock-shelter, situated on the coast of Ayrshire, in the parish of West Kilbride; and, though less rich in deposits than many similar dwellings examined in England and on the Continent, it is not without interest. About twentyseven feet in length, up to within fifteen feet of its inner extremity, it is about six feet high, and as many broad. When examined by Mr. Cochran-Patrick, the earth in the inner portion was very wet, and though showing traces of shells, bone, and charcoal, nothing sufficiently perfect to determine what it had originally been was found.

'The outer portion was quite dry, and was excavated down to the level of the rock, an average depth of six feet. Three floors were distinctly visible in the section. The highest was at an average depth of eighteen inches from the present surface, the second about twelve inches below the first, and the lowest about nine inches below the second. In each of these floors there appeared in the section, first, layers of sea-shells (chiefly whelk with a few cockle and mussel shells), then grey and red ashes, and then the ordinary trodden sand, till the floor below was reached.

The bones were chiefly found amongst the ash deposit, though a few were found among the shells. The only other objects which were found were—(1) a bone article, now deposited in the Museum, found at

immediately above the lower floor, and another, apparently of slate, which was picked up amongst the debris thrown out, and the original position of which is uncertain. Besides these some specimens of slag and portions of broken pottery were also found. The pottery is of two sorts: one a coarse reddish kind without any glaze, the other thinner and better made, with a green glaze.'*

The bones were for the most part those of the pig, ox, sheep, and deer. These were found at all the levels. Chiefly, if not exclusively, between the upper and second floor were found the bones of a horse; and between the second and third floor those of a dog. Bones belonging to a goat were also found, but their original position was not noticed. The sheep bones were peculiar, and according to Professor Clelland, who examined and reported on them, must have belonged to an animal which, while quite as tall as the ordinary black-faced sheep of modern Scotland, was very greatly more slender both in body and limb,' and even 'almost deer-like.' The remains of the ox belong to a small variety of the Bos longifrons, a fragment of the back of the shaft of a tibia found beneath the lowest floor exactly corresponding with a small tibia obtained from the crannog of Lochlee. As to the remains of the deer, Professor Clelland remarks:

'There is every possibility that a number of them belonged to the reddeer, and there are only two little bits of skull and three chips of horn to found the suggestion of the presence of rein-deer on. The rein-deer skull is noted for variability. The chips of horn are very small to found on. They are all three smooth and grooved, and one of them with a small projection sloping up from the side of the plane of flattening, but so as not to lie in that plane. They are not from the fallow-deer, and the question is whether they are from an upper tyne of a red-deer rubbed perfectly smooth or from a rein-deer. I cannot find any example in the red-deer of a projection from a tyne in the same fashion as occurs in one of these fragments, nor such uniform smoothness of surface so completely like the smoothness of the rein-deer horn; yet I should like further evidence before pronouncing a decided opinion.' +

It is to be regretted that further evidence on this somewhat important point was not obtained, as similar hesitancy marks the report on some of the fragments of horn found in the crannog of Lochlee.