Blair Collection > Place names in Strathbogie, with notes historical, antiquarian and descriptive

42 Place N'anics in Strathbogie.
is incidental. Much has to be done by care-
ful examination before this vexed question is
definitely settled. Hitherto it has stood in the
way of any real progress in the knowledge of forts
of this class. We know little or nothing of the
builders themselves, of the character or uses of
their forts, nor of the time when they were erected
or abandoned. It maybe too sanguine to expect
that we shall ever learn much on these points ;
but we have the advantage of dealing with struc-
tures which, though more or less wrecked by time
and the hand of man, so far as yet appears have
never been ' restored,' nor adapted to the require-
ments of later times, as the fort of Bennachie may
have been. W^c have, besides, many of the same
class, affording means of comparing and correct-
ing opinions formed in the study of a single
example. There can be no question, I think,
that the forts of Knock Farrel, Craig Phadrig,
Tap o' Noth, and Dunnideer, were erected at, or
about, the same time ; that they were built on
the same plan ; and I could even imagine that
one mind presided over the erection of the
whole. As to their relation with unvitrified forts,
such as Caterthun, we have as yet no evidence.
On examining the mass of stones piled up on
the slope of the Tap o' Noth immediately below
the ramparts, it becomes more difficult to under-
stand what could have been accomplished either
by thorough or superficial vitrifaction. One can