Of an entirely opposite character are the Cat Stanes found in various parts of Scotland, apparently deriving their name from the British _Cad_ or the Celtic _Cath_, signifying a battle, and therefore marking the scene of some ancient conflict. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Camus Stone near Edinburgh, formerly stood two very large conical cairns, styled the Cat-stanes, until demolished by the same irreverent utilitarians who had found covetable materials in the rude memorial stone. Underneath the cairns were cists containing human skeletons and various bronze and iron weapons. Two iron spear-heads found in them are now preserved in the neighbouring mansion of Mortonhall; and according to the description of other relics formerly possessed by a neighbouring farmer, they would appear to have also contained celts and other weapons of bronze. A few yards to the north-west of the site which these cairns occupied, there still stands the Kel or Caiy Stone, a mass of the red sandstone of the district, measuring above eleven feet in height. On digging in the neighbourhood of this primitive monument a quantity of human bones have been found, irregularly interred, without cists or urns, and not far from it are still visible the rude earth-works of a British camp. Much more extensive intrenchments of an oval form existed in the immediate neighbourhood, prior to the construction of the new road, and are described by General Roy in tracing one of the Roman iters.[113] There is another standing-stone within the Mortonhall grounds, at about half a mile distant from the site of the Cat-stanes, and also two larger masses lying together, which are not improbably the remains of a ruined cromlech. Here, in all likelihood, has been the battle ground of ancient Scottish chiefs, contending, it may be, with some fierce invader. The locality is peculiarly suited for the purpose. It is within a few miles of the sea, and though inclosed in an amphitheatre of hills, it is the highest ground in the immediate neighbourhood, and the very spot on which a retreating host might be expected to make a stand ere they finally betook themselves to the neighbouring fastnesses of the Pentland Hills. A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted CATT STANE, in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely lettered inscription--the work most probably of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut--IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA . . VICTR . . About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stone a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons, but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared. [Illustration: The Caiy Stone]