NOU'SA, an island of Shetland. remarkable for an object of antiquity styled Burgh Nowt, which consists of a round tower of the class known in the north of Scotland as Pictish towers. Burgh-Mousa occupies a knoll close upou the rocky sea-beach, from which materials for its construction had been taken. The whole fabric is composed of flat slabs of clay-slate, which have been easily piled together in a compact mass witttout the aid of mortar. In exterior figure, the tower is round, inclining inward about half way lip, and then tulging out near the top. Near the foundation Its__ circumference is 13t3 ft., and it niteatsarest about 40 ft. ID height. the sea, there is a door way, and that is the only exterior aperture. If there were ever any door-posts, they have disappeared; it is feasibly conjectured, however, that instead of employing a door, the inmates had, on emergencies, built up the opening, for which there is an abundance of loose materials at hand. Entering the doorway. we find the wall 16 ft. thick, and looking upward, feel as if we were at the bottom of a well, for the circular interior has no flooring, and the top is open to the sky. Opposite the doorway, there is an entrance to a passage and stair which wind upward, Within the thickness of the wall, to the sum mit of the building. At different places there are recesses, or galleries, leading off from
the stair, lighted by apertures to the interior; such dismal holes being all that we find in the way of apartments. It is customary to speak of an outer and inner wall; but the two walls, if we so distinguish them, are so firmly hound together by the stir and other wise, as to afford a united resistance to assault. Obviously, the structure was used as a retreat in case of attack from foreign enemies, against whom missiles could be Amend down from the species of battlement formed by the top of the well-knit walls. Accord ing to tradition, the tower of Mousa was occupied by Erland, a Norwegian jail, about 1154, when it successfully endured a siege that was undertaken to recover a runaway lady ; but how any lady could have found accommodation in such miserable quarters, it is dif ficult to conjecture. The Society of Scottish antiquaries deserves thanks for having repaired this tine memorial of a former state of society in Shetland. From its compara tively complete state, Burgh-Housa is considered a good specimen of the Pictish towers, so called.