t each end is the
representation of a human head."[43][44] In its existing defaced
form,[45] the sculpture has certainly much more the appearance of a
recumbent human figure, with a head at one end and the feet at the
other, than with a human head at either extremity. The present
condition of the monument is faithfully given in the accompanying
woodcut, which, like most of the other woodcuts in this little essay,
have been copied from sketches made by the masterly pencil of my
esteemed friend, Mr. James Drummond, R.S.A.

[Illustration: Fig. 1. Sculptured Stone, Inchcolm.]

[Illustration: Fig. 2. Danish Monument.]

It is well known that, about a century after the occurrence of these
Danish wars, and of the alleged burial of the Danish chiefs on
Inchcolm,--or in the first half of the thirteenth[47] century,--there
was founded on this island, by Alexander I., a monastery, which from
time to time was greatly enlarged, and well endowed. The monastic
buildings remaining on Inchcolm at the present day are of very various
dates, and still so extensive that their oblong light-grey mass,
surmounted by a tall square central tower, forms a striking object in
the distance, as seen in the summer morning light from the higher
streets and houses of Edinburgh, and from the neighbouring shores of the
Firth of Forth. These monastic buildings have been fortunately protected
and preserved by their insular situation,--not from the silent and
wasting touch of time, but from the more ruthless and destructive hand
of man. The stone-roofed octagonal chapter-house is one of the most
beautiful and perfect in Scotland; and the abbot's house, the cloisters,
refectory, etc., are still comparatively entire. But the object of the
present communication is not to describe the well-known conventual ruins
on the island, but to direct the attention of the Society to a small
building, isolated, and standing at a little distance from the remains
of the monastery, and which, I am inclined to believe, is of an older
date, and of an earlier age, than any part of the monastery itself.

[Illustration: Fig 3. Inchcolm.]

The small building, cell, oratory, or chapel, to which I allude, forms
now, with its south side, a portion of the line of the north wall of the
present garden, and is in a very ruinous state; but its more
characteristic and original features can still be accurately made out.

[Illustration: Fig. 4. Ground-plan of Oratory.]

The building is