In the year 1828 a remarkable cairn was opened on Airswood Moss, Dumfriesshire, by a party of labourers, when seeking for stones with which to build a "march dyke," or boundary wall. The cairn consisted, as usual, of a heap of loose stones, surrounded by a ring of larger stones, closely set together. These formed a regular circle, measuring fifty-four feet in diameter. Its form, however, was singular. For about fourteen feet from the inner side of the encircling stones it rose gradually, but above this the angle of elevation abruptly changed, and the centre was formed into a steep cone. Directly underneath this a cist was found, lying north and south, composed of six large unhewn stones, and measuring in the interior four feet two inches in greatest length, with a depth of two feet. It contained only human bones, indicating a person of large stature, laid with the head towards the north. The further demolition of the cairn disclosed a curious example of regular internal construction on a systematic plan. From the four corners of the central cist there extended, in the form of a saltire, or St. Andrew's cross, rows of stones overlapping each other like the slating of a house. At the extremity of one of these, distant about fourteen feet from the central cist, another was found of corresponding structure and dimensions, but laid at right angles to the radiating row of stones. Another is said to have been found at the extremity of one of the opposite limbs of the cross; and it seems most probable that the whole four were originally conjoined to corresponding cists, but a considerable portion of one side of the cairn had been removed before attention was directed to the subject. Between the limbs of the cross a quantity of bones, in a fragmentary state, were strewn about.[72] Such a disposition of a group of cists, under a large cairn, though rare, is not without a parallel, and may perhaps be found characteristic of a class. The Rev. Harry Robertson of Kiltearn describes one in that parish, about thirty paces in diameter, which contained a central cist three and a half feet long, and at the circumference on the east, south, and west sides, three others of similar dimensions. As the cairn was in this case also imperfect, and partly demolished, it is not improbable that a fourth, on the north side, may have been previously destroyed.[73] Here, as in the tumuli with cinerary urns surrounding the central cist, the group of urns in the cairn on the hill of Down, and in numerous other instances, we find a singular arrangement, apparently designed as subservient to the honours lavished on some distinguished chief.