cruciform plan; but it is in fact only the tricameral arrangement common in tumuli in Caithness and other parts of the north of Scotland.[1] It apparently was covered originally by a little cairn of its own; but this had disappeared, and the tomb emptied of its contents at some period anterior to the formation of the peat which had accumulated round the stones, and which was removed a few years ago by Sir James Matheson when this grave was first discovered. From the central stone a double avenue extends 294 feet, and from the same point southward, a single row for 114 feet; making the whole length of the avenues 408 feet; while two arms extend east and west, measuring 130 feet across the whole.
I believe it was John Stuart that first made the remark:—"Remove the cairn from New Grange, and the pillars would form another Callernish ;"[2] and there seems little doubt but that this is the true explanation of the peculiar form of the monument. Nor is it difficult to see why this should be the case; for it must be borne in mind that the whole of the chambers and the access to them must have been constructed, and probably stood, naked for some time before they began to heap the cairn over them. Calliagh Birra's tomb (woodcut No. 80), and the numerous "Grottes des fées" we meet with in France and elsewhere I look on as chambers, some of which it was intended should be buried in tumuli, which, however, never were erected: others, when men had become familiar with the naked forms, were like many dolmens, never intended to be hidden. It may be a mere fancy; but I cannot escape from an impression that, in many instances at least, the chambers were constructed during their lifetime by kings or chiefs as their own tombs, and that the cairn was not raised over them till the bodies were deposited in their recesses. This, at least, is the case in the East, where most of the great tombs were erected by those who were to lie in them. During their lifetime they used them as pleasure-houses, and only after their death were the entrances walled up and the windows obscured, so as to produce the gloom supposed to be appropriate to the residences of the dead. Another point is worth observing. It seems most improbable that sculptures,
