Note 130 — ON THE CAT-STANE, KIRKLISTON.

The comparative rapidity or slowness with which bones are decomposed and disappear in different soils, is sometimes a question of importance to the antiquary. We all know that they preserve for many long centuries in dry soils and dry positions. In moist ground, such as that on which the Cat-stane stands, they melt away far more speedily. On another part of Mrs. Ramsay's property, namely in the policy, and within two hundred yards of the mansion-house of Barnton, I opened, several years ago, with Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, the grave of a woman who had died—as the tombstone on the spot told us—during the last Scottish plague in the year 1648. The only remains of sepulture which we found were some fragments of the wooden coffin, and the enamel crowns of a few teeth. All other parts of the body and skeleton had entirely disappeared. The chemical qualities of the ground, and consequently of its water, will of course modify the rapidity of such results.