On the receipt of Mr. Henderson's letter, I lost no time in making an appointment to meet him at Lochspouts, where I became more fully acquainted with the nature and extent of the proposed excavations. The débris formerly wheeled from the mound lay in two heaps just beyond the margin of the artificial island, but still within the boundaries of the reservoir. These, therefore, together with a complete section of the island, about 3 feet in thickness, were to be removed entirely beyond the rocky barrier. I understood that in clearing away the contents of this section, the wood-work, especially towards the margin of the crannog, and about the surrounding piles, was to have been left intact for some time, but when I revisited the scene of the operations a few days afterwards, I found that a gang of some forty or fifty men had made such progress that the whole section was completely removed, leaving nothing but small pillars here and there for the purpose of calculating the number of cubic yards excavated. All the horizontal beams and other wood-work were taken away, and nothing left above the base of the section except a few of the encircling uprights on the shore side of the crannog. My regret at this unexpected rapidity of the process of demolition was however considerably allayed when I found that Mr. James Mathewson, the inspector of the works, under whose vigilant eye the operations were conducted, had taken a most intelligent interest in the archæological phase of the remains, and had even taken notes of some of the phenomena which appeared to him most important. It is therefore to him I am chiefly indebted for the following details. During the former explorations, the conjecture that the paved habitable surface, with its remains of hearths, relics, etc., then reached, was a secondary one superimposed upon the débris of a former habitation, was supported by the following observations, which could not, however, be verified by deeper excavations, owing to the rushing up of water:-- (1.) The level of the log-pavement was considerably higher than the tops of the uprights forming the surrounding circles. (2.) In various places, when attempting to dig beneath it, ashes, charcoal, bones, hazel-nuts, and sea-shells were turned up. (See page 164.) The evidence now produced left no doubt that this conjecture was well founded.