About 60 yards from this last Crannog was a smaller one, presenting no essential points of difference, and nearer the south-east shore of the loch was a group of six, still smaller and less distinct in outline, but all apparently similar in construction.
[Illustration: Fig. 247.—Bead of glass with lining of bronze (length, 1 inch).]
The other objects found in association with these Crannogs or in the loch-bottom in their immediate neighbourhood, were a number of beads of variegated glass or vitreous paste, one of which (Fig. 247) has a lining of bronze in the perforation; one amber bead; a small bronze ring; a clay crucible; several whetstones; five querns; a bronze dish (Fig. 248), about 12 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep, hammered out of the solid, and having a flat rim 1 inch in breadth, turned over, and slightly bent downwards; another dish similarly made, but without the flattened rim, 12 inches diameter and 4 inches deep; and a third (Fig. 249) of thinner metal, flat-bottomed with sloping sides, 10 inches diameter and 4 inches deep, the bottom and sides patched in several places by pieces fastened on with flat-headed double-toed rivets exactly like the modern paper-fasteners; a large bronze ring attached to the upper part of a caldron of thin bronze; a portion of a tube of cast bronze of unknown use; a wooden paddle; and a number of fragments of articles of iron complete the list.
[Illustration: Fig. 248.—Bronze Basin found in the Loch of Dowalton (height, 3 inches).]
[Illustration: Fig. 249.—Basin of thin bronze found in the Loch of Dowalton (height, 4 inches).]
In the Black Loch, in the parish of Inch, Wigtonshire, an island explored in 1872 by Mr. C. E. Dalrymple was found to have been a Crannog formed upon a shoal in the lake. In the centre of the island there was a circular mound, 45 feet in diameter, and rising to about 5 feet above the level of the loch and 3½ feet above the general surface of the island. At a depth of about 5 feet in the centre of the mound there was a flooring of trunks of trees, chiefly oak and alder, crossing each other at right angles. This log flooring covered a circular space of about 50 feet in diameter. At different levels above it and over the whole of its area there were found many fireplaces or hearths, formed of two long narrow slabs set on edge and parallel to each other with a paved space between, and filled and surrounded by ashes and bones of animals broken and split. In one of these accumulations of ashes and food refuse there were found a fragment of bronze and a portion of an iron knife; and in another a broken armlet of glass. A broken double-edged bone comb, ornamented with dots and circles, and a portion of a stone disc with a bevelled edge, were also found. The island seemed to have been surrounded with piles, and a small canoe, dug out of a single tree, was discovered in the loch, near the narrow channel which separates the island from the shore.