Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

130 PlCTs' HOUSES.
These structures are not strictly subterranean; the
upper part, or interior ceiling- of the vault, being, gene-
rally, nearly on a level with the surrounding ground, or
not much depressed below it. If that were removed,
they would appear like oblong shallow pits; and thus it
is easy to see that they were formed by first making an
open excavation. Their dimensions vary slightly in dif-
ferent places ;
but they range from ten to fourteen feet in
length, and from six to ten in breadth ; the height within
being seldom more than four feet. The vault which
forms the ceiling is produced in two modes. Sometimes
it consists of long flat stones, laid across the pit and resting
on the sides ; at others, of smaller stones laid over each
other in diminishing courses, so as to form three or four
rows ; the weight of the outer ones sustaining the inner
in succession. The floor is always of the bare earth
and so are the sides in some ; but, in others, the latter
are lined with a rude casing of stones. There is no aper-
ture for smoke or light, except that which forms the
entrance ; nor have the marks of fire been found in any
of them. The entrance is so low and narrow as to admit
a man with some difficulty, and only by creeping. The
top of the door-way, if it may be so called, is either on a
level with the surrounding ground, or somewhat beneath
it; and it is sometimes formed of a single long stone, at
others, of two inclined at an angle, as in the entrances
to the Egyptian pyramids ; the sides are also secured by
stones. A perpendicular pit before it, when the ground
is level, admits to this entrance ; but being in some cases
made in sloping ground, the access, in these, becomes
somewhat easier. A heap of earth covers the vault ; and,
whether it has originally been so or not, they now always
resemble the surrounding uneven ground so strongly,
that their existence would not be conjectured, nor caa
;