Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/269

FROM THE ROMAN WALL NORTHWARD INTO SCOTLAND. 233 here, and aims for Wise's Sheepfold and the Green Knowe at the head of the Craigy Cleugh. The view from Skelton Pike is very extensive. About half a mile south-west of Skelton Pike, are the remains of a large cairn, called the Curragh. It has been rectangular, about 45 yards long, 20 broad, and about 10 feet high. A great part of the stones were carted away to build the adjoining fences, about the year 1813. It was computed to contain 10,000 cart-loads of stones. A person named William Smith, who was carting stones from it, dug about six feet below the bottom of it in one place, and found nothing but sand. There was no appearance of any graves in it so far as he could ascertain ; no coins, bones, or inscrip- tions were found. Parts of the eastern and northern sides are remaining. The last person who carted stones from the Curragh, thought he was coming to stones or slabs set on edge, one evening, but, when he returned to his work on the 'following morning, a large quantity of stones had fallen down upon it, and, as his contract was just ended, he made no farther search, but took the stones which were most con- venient for his purpose. This vast structure would appear to have been a place of burial, and the kistvaen with its mouldering contents is probably still undisturbed. It may also have been erected for some other purpose. The word Curragh or Currack, by contraction becomes Kirk, and by corruption. Church, and hence we might infer that it may have been a place of worship. Pennant, in his voyage to the Hebrides, says, " The learned assigned other causes for these heaps of atones ; have supposed them to have been, in times of inauguration, the places where the chieftain elect stood to show himself to the best advantage to the people ; or the place from whence judgment was pronounced ; or to have been erected on the road side in honour of Mercury ; or to have been formed in memory of some solemn compact." From the fact of their requiring such an amount of labour, they must have been erected by a settled and not a nomad race. Some historical enquirers believe in the existence of a native population in Britain at a very early period. It has been conjectured that the Celts passed to the western part of the world 2100 years B.C., and that the Celtic Druids reached Britain about 1(500 years B.C. About the time, therefore.