Wallace remarks, in his Description of Orkney:--"In one of these hillocks, near the circle of high stones at the north end of the Bridge of Stennis, there were found nine fibulæ of silver, of the shape of a horse-shoe, but round."[52] Unfortunately the dimensions of these silver relics are not given; but from the engraving of one of them, it seems more likely that they consisted chiefly of gorgets, though, in all probability, including a variety of objects of great interest. But the view of the great circle of Stennis, which accompanies that of the fibula found in its neighbourhood, is sufficient to satisfy the most credulous how little faith can be put in the engravings. The most numerous and remarkable of all the Scottish sepulchral mounds, both for number and size, are the stone tumuli or CAIRNS, many of which are works of great labour and considerable skill. These singular monumental pyramids are by no means to be accounted for from any local peculiarities furnishing a ready supply of loose stones. They abound in almost every district of the country, and are frequently of much larger dimensions than the earthen tumuli, though the nature of their materials has led to the destruction of many of them in the progress of inclosing lands for agricultural purposes. We learn from the Book of Joshua of the practice of raising heaps of stone over the dead as a mark of indignity or abhorrence. The contents of the Scottish sepulchral cairns, however, prove for them an altogether different origin, as will appear when we come to review them in detail. They are generally designed on a larger scale than the earthen tumuli, and must have ranked at a remote period among the most distinguished honours awarded to the illustrious dead. Another remarkable, though much rarer sepulchral monument, is the Cromlech, or "Druidical altar," as it was long erroneously termed, until archæologists, abandoning theory for observation, discovered that these huge monolithic structures invariably marked the sites of ancient sepulture. Similar primitive colossal structures are found, not only throughout the whole British Isles, but in many parts of the continent of Europe, and are occasionally discovered, like the slighter cist, entombed beneath the earth-pyramid or tumulus, affording thereby singular evidence of the unostentatious liberality with which the honours of the dead were rendered in the olden time to which they belong.