Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/551

App A. CALLIAGH BIRRA'S TOMB. 525 chambers are made of huge slabs, one at each side, one atop, one at each end. I measured one, and found the sides each 12 feet long and 4 feet broad. Most of the monuments project but little above the ground. One is used to keep calves in, one for pigs, and one for lambs. A native of the townland told me that his brother had dug up a skull and a piece of earthenware near one of the cromlechs. The skull was buried in the churchyard, and its grave is forgotten. The same man also told me that, digging to clear a cromlech for a malt-store, they found that the side slabs rested on a basement slab. The ground is very rugged about these monuments, and some are quite beneath ground, but I think there are altogether six.

I hope that, if these notes are too late to be of use for your book, they may yet be of some interest to you, and

I remain, my dear Sir, yours sincerely,

James Fergusson, Esq. On receiving the above communication, I forwarded to Mr. Moore an impression of the woodcut No. 80, representing Calliagh Birra's Tomb or House, and received the following reply : —

August 28, 1871.

— The cromlechs of Farn MacBride, as they stand apparently undisturbed, exactly resemble in plan that depicted in the woodcut. With one or two exceptions the cromlechs of Glen Malin, as far as one can tell in their fallen condition, are built on the same plan. The shape of the stones at the sides and of the top slabs of the cromlech in the engraving is exactly the shape of the stones of the cromlechs in both Glen Malin and Farn MacBride, In one or two of the cromlechs I noticed stones which might correspond to the buttress like outside stones of the ground-plan in the cut.

The number of slabs in the side walls of the Glen cromlechs is smaller than the number in the woodcut.

The very large cromlech, easternmost of the group the first described in my letter, is in every particular, except the number of its component blocks, the counterpart of your engraving.

In fine, the plan of all the cromlechs of Glen Columbkille, except one or two, the variety of which may be owing to disarrangement, is that of the Meath cromlech.