Vol 5 - Dumfriesshire & Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian ...

—48 Transactions.two cups within the circumference of one ring. The larger ringmeasures two feet across in one direction and one foot eiglitinches in the otlier. The cups are each three inches across, andthe grooves respectively three and five inches long.*The ground all about these Balmae outhouses is very rocky.Large spaces of rock are exposed, and on almost all of them,there are not only weather-worn ovals and narrower holes, butfaint traces of artificial handiwork, besides the distinct designjust described and those I am about to refer to. In one largeflat rock are two large and deep cavities, measuring about 1 0^ in.by 8 in. in diameter, and respectively 6 in. and 5 in. deep. Theyare perfectly spherical at about two inches below the surface :above that line their sharpness of edge loses itself in a lip, andthe lip gradually slopes up to the actual surface of the rock.They may have been, originally, grinding basins, and in thecourse of thousands of years {!,) have become smoothed away intotheir present oval form. Or they may, originally, have been thebeds of large pebbles, and thereafter worked upon by the flint orbronze tools of our Archaic sculptors. On the rock nearest these,some twelve or fifteen feet to the east, there are numerous roundsuspiciously artificial-looking hollows, very shallow, but veryregular, which lie in lines along its surface, running north-eastand south-west, and evidently a continuation of similar cups tobe seen in smaller numbers on another exposed piece of the samerock. The space between the two now exposed rocks is quiteturfed over, yet not so deeply as to prevent our striking the rockbelow with a long-handled spud. We counted at least fifty ofthese cup-marks ; and since my first visit, rings, of the usual type,have been observed. Though there may be a reasonable doubtas to the origin of these cavities, there can be none as to thedesign and accuracy displayed in the group of petroglyphs presentlyto come under our notice—the last important typical groupof this district.On the rather steeply sloping surface of a very weathered andfflaciated mass of whinstone in situ—some 100 yards or so southwestof Balmae—are two sets of concentric rings, one having fiverings and an extreme diameter of 24 in., with central cup of 1^in., being in no way more remarkable than others of the same* At Little Bahnae Mr Hornel has found a very similar sculpturingtwo rings within each other, but still more irregular than those describedabove, and vtithout cup or groove. Measurement of outer ring, 18 in. by17 in. at widest point ; of inner ring, 13 in. by 10 in.