The earth and its inhabitants (1881) (14597724989)

Identifier: earthitsinhabita481recl (find matches)
Title: The earth and its inhabitants ..
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Reclus, Elisée, 1830-1905 Ravenstein, Ernest George, 1834-1913 Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912
Subjects: Geography
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries



Text Appearing Before Image:
wick, bulges out near its base, probably to prevent * Macaulay, A Voyage to and History of St. Kilda.t G. Seton, St. Kilda, Past and Present. 856 THE BRITISH ISLES. the use of scaling-ladders, tuul recesses occur at regular intervals on the inside of the wall. Cromlechs, cairns, standing stones, symbolical sculptures, circles of stones, pile dwellings, and vitrified forts are found in several localities both on the mainland and the islands. Primitive monuments of this kind form one of the most salient landscape features in the Orkneys. On Pomona there is a district of several square miles in area which still abounds in prehistoric monuments of every description, although many stones have been carried away by the neighbouring farmers. In the tumulus of Meashow, opened in 1861, were discovered over 000 Runic inscriptions, and the carved images of fanciful animals. On the same island are the standing stones of Stennis ; and on Lewis, 12 miles to the west of Fig. I -The Standing Stones of Stennis.
Text Appearing After Image:
Stornoway, the grey stones of Callernish. These latter, forty-eight in number,are also known as Tuirsachan, or Field of Mourning, and they still form a perfect circle, partly buried in peat, which has grown to a height of from 6 to 12 feet around them.* We know that these constructions belong to different ages, andthat now and then the stones raised by the earliest builders were added to by their successors. Christian inscriptions in oghams and runes in characters not older,according to Miinch, than the beginning of the twelfth century, have been discovered on these monuments. At Newton, in Aberdeenshire, there is a stone inscribed in curiously shaped letters, not yet deciphered. * Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland.