he
vexed question of the true character of our so-called "Druidical
circles" and "Druidical stones," by proving to us that one of their uses
at least was sepulchral. The bogs and mosses of Ireland, Denmark, and
other countries, have, when dug into, yielded up great stores of
interesting antiquarian objects--usually wonderfully preserved by the
qualities of the soil in which they were immersed--as stone and metallic
implements, portions of primaeval costume, combs, and other articles of
the toilet, pieces of domestic furniture, old and buried wooden houses,
and even, as in the alleged case of Queen Gunhild, and other "bogged" or
"pitted" criminals, human bodies astonishingly entire, and covered with
the leathern and other dresses in which they died. All this forms a
great mine of antiquarian research, in which little or nothing has yet
been accomplished in Scotland. It is only by due excavations that we can
hope to acquire a proper analytical knowledge of the primaeval abodes of
our ancestors,--whether these abodes were in underground "weems," or in
those hitherto neglected and yet most interesting objects of Scottish
Archaeology, namely, our archaic villages and towns, the vestiges and
marks of which lie scattered over our plains and mountain sides--always
near a stream, or lake, or good spring--usually marked by groups of
shallow pits or excavations (the foundations of their old circular
houses) and a few nettles--generally protected and surrounded on one or
more sides by a rath or earth-wall--often near a hill-fort--and having
attached to them, at some distance in the neighbourhood, stone graves,
and sometimes, as on the grounds about Morton Hall, monoliths and
barrows.

Last year we had detailed at length to the Society the very remarkable
results which Mr. Neish had obtained by simple persevering digging upon
the hill of the Laws in Forfarshire, exposing, as his excavations have
done, over the whole top of the hill, extensive Cyclopic walls of
several feet in height, formerly buried beneath the soil, and of such
strange and puzzling forms as to defy as yet any definite conjecture of
their character. No doubt similar works, with similar remains of
implements, ornaments, querns, charred corn, etc., will yet be found by
similar diggings on other Scottish hills; and at length we may obtain
adequate data for fixing their nature and object, and perhaps even their
date. Certainly every Scotch antiquary must heartily wish t