{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20902/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20902","id":"gutenberg_20902","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20902","summary":null,"tags":["Archaeology","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1885 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Clyde Mystery\nA Study in Forgeries and Folklore\n\n\nBy\nAndrew Lang, M.A. Oxford\nHon. Fellow of Merton College, LL.D. St. Andrews\nD.Litt. Oxford, D.C.L. Durham\n\nGlasgow\nJames MacLehose and Sons\nPublishers to the University\n1905\n\nGLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY\nROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe author would scarcely have penned this little specimen of what Scott\ncalled \"antiquarian old womanries,\" but for the interest which he takes\nin the universally diffused archaic patterns on rocks and stones, which\noffer a singular proof of the identity of the working of the human mind.\nAnthropology and folklore are the natural companions and aids of\nprehistoric and proto-historic archaeology, and suggest remarks which may\nnot be valueless, whatever view we may take of the disputed objects from\nthe Clyde sites.\n\nWhile only an open verdict on these objects is at present within the\ncompetence of science, the author, speaking for himself, must record his\nprivate opinion that, as a rule, they are ancient though anomalous.  He\ncannot pretend to certainty as to whether the upper parts of the marine\nstructures were throughout built of stone, as in Dr. Munro's theory,\nwhich is used as the fundamental assumption in this book; or whether they\nwere of wood, as in the hypothesis of Mr. Donnelly, illustrated by him in\nthe Glasgow _Evening Times_ (Sept. 11, 1905).  The point seems\nunessential.  The author learns from Mr. Donnelly that experiments in\nshaping piles with an ancient stone axe have been made by Mr. Joseph\nDownes, of Irvine, as by Monsieur Hippolyte Muller in France, with\nsimilar results, a fact which should have been mentioned in the book.  It\nappears too, that a fragment of fallow deer horn at Dumbuck, mentioned by\nDr. Munro, turned out to be \"a decayed _humerus_ of the _Bos\nLongifrons_,\" and therefore no evidence as to date, as post-Roman.\n\nMr. Donnelly also protests that his records of his excavations \"were\nexceptionally complete,\" and that he \"took daily notes and sketches of\nall features and finds with measurements.\"  I must mention these facts,\nas, in the book, I say that Mr. Donnelly \"kept no minute and hourly dated\nlog book of his explorations, with full details as to the precise\npositions of the objects discovered.\"\n\nIf in any respect I have misconceived the facts and arguments, I trust\nthat the fault will be ascribed to nothing worse than human fallibility.\n\nI have to thank Mr. Donnelly for permission to photograph some objects\nfrom Dumbuck and for much information.\n\nTo Dr. Munro, apart from his most valuable books of crannog lore, I owe\nhis kind attention to my private inquiries, and hope that I successfully\nrepresent his position and arguments.  It is quite undeniable that the\ndisputed objects are most anomalous as far as our present knowledge goes,\nand I do not think that science can give more than all I plead for, an\nopen verdict.  Dr. Ricardo Severe generously permitted me to reproduce a\nfew (by no means the most singular) of his designs and photographs of the\ndisputed Portuguese objects.  A serious illness has prevented him from\nmaking a visit recently to the scene of the discoveries (see his paper in\n_Portugalia_, vol. ii., part 1).  I trust that Dr. de Vasconcellos, from\nwhom I have not yet heard, will pardon the reproduction of three or four\nfigures from his _Religioes_, an important work on prehistoric Portugal.\n\nTo Dr. Joseph Anderson, of the National Museum, I owe much gratitude for\ninformation, and for his great kindness in superintending the\nphotographing of some objects now in that Museum.\n\nDr. David Murray obliged me by much information as to the early\nnavigation of the Clyde, and the alterations made in the bed of the\nriver.  To Mr. David Boyle, Ontario, I owe the knowledge of Red Indian\nmagic stones parallel to the perforated and inscribed stone from Tappock.\n\nAs I have quoted from Dr. Munro the humorous tale of the palaeolithic\ndesigns which deceived M. Lartet and Mr. Christie, I ought to observe\nthat, in _L'Anthropologie_, August, 1905, a reviewer of Dr. Munro's book,\nProf. Boule, expresses some doubt as to the authenticity of the\n_historiette_.\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n1.  Inscribed Stone, Langbank.\n\n2.  Grotesque Face on Stone, Langbank.\n\n3.  Late Celtic Comb, Langbank.\n\n4.  Bronze Brooch, Langbank.\n\n5.  _Churinga Irula_, Wooden Bull-roarers, Arunta Tribe.\n\n6.  _Churinga Nanja_, Inscribed Sacred Stone, Arunta.\n\n7.  Sacred Stone Uninscribed, Arunta.\n\n8.  Collection of Arunta Sacred Stones.\n\n9, 10.  Inscribed Perforated Stone from Tappock.  Age of Iron.\n\n11.  Perforated and Inscribed Stone from Dunbuie.\n\n12, 13.  Perforated Inscribed Stones from Ontario, Canada.\n\n14.  Perforated Inscribed Stones from Portugal, Neolithic.\n\n15.  Perforated Inscribed Stones from Portugal, Neolithic.\n\n16.  Perforated \"Cup and Duct\" Stone, Portugal, Neolithic.\n\n17, 18.  Large Slate Spear-head, Dumbuck.\n\n19.  Stone Figurine of Woman, Dumbuck.\n\n20, 21.  Cup and Duct Stones, Portuguese, Dolmen Site, Villa d'Aguiar.\n\n22.  Stone Figurine of Woman, Portuguese, Dolmen Site, Villa d'Aguiar.\n\n23.  Heart-shaped Stone, Villa d'Aguiar.\n\n24.  Cupped Stone, Villa d'Aguiar.\n\n25.  Stone Pendant, Men in Boat, Scottish.\n\nFigures 1-4 from _Transactions_, with permission of Glasgow\nArchaeological Society.  Figures 5-8, Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes\nof Central Australia_; with permission of Messrs. Macmillan and Co.  9-11.\nWith permission of Scottish Society of Antiquaries.  12-13. Bulletin of\nBoard of Education of Ontario.  14-16. _Religioes_, etc., L. de\nVasconcellos.  17-19. With permission of Mr. W. H. Donnelly.  20-24. With\npermission of Sr. Ricardo Severo.  25. With permission of Scottish\nSociety of Antiquarians.\n\n\n\n\nI--THE CLYDE MYSTERY\n\n\nThe reader who desires to be hopelessly perplexed, may desert the\ncontemplation of the Fiscal Question, and turn his eyes upon _The Mystery\nof the Clyde_.  \"Popular\" this puzzle cannot be, for there is no \"demmed\ndemp disagreeable body\" in the Mystery.  No such object was found in\nClyde, near Dumbarton, but a set of odd and inexpensive looking, yet\nprofoundly enigmatic scraps of stone, bone, slate, horn and so forth,\nwere discovered and now repose in a glass case at the National Museum in\nQueen Street, Edinburgh.\n\nThere, as in the Morgue, lies awaiting explanation the _corpus delicti_\nof the Clyde Mystery.  We stare at it and ask what are these slate spear\nheads engraved with rude ornament, and certainly never meant to be used\nas \"lethal weapons\"?  What are these many-shaped perforated plaques of\nslate, shale, and schist, scratched with some of the old mysterious\npatterns that, in almost every part of the world, remain inscribed on\nslabs and faces of rock?  Who incised similar patterns on the\noyster-shells, some old and local, some fresh--_and American_!  Why did\nany one scratch them?  What is the meaning, if meaning there be, of the\nbroken figurines or stone \"dolls\"?  They have been styled \"totems\" by\npersons who do not know the meaning of the word \"totem,\" which merely\ndenotes the _natural_ object,--usually a plant or animal,--after which\nsets of kinsfolk are named among certain savage tribes.  Let us call the\nlittle figures \"figurines,\" for that commits us to nothing.\n\nThen there are grotesque human heads, carved in stone; bits of sandstone,\nmarked with patterns, and so forth.  Mixed with these are the common rude\nappliances, quern stones for grinding grain; stone hammers, stone\npolishers, cut antlers of deer, pointed bones, such as rude peoples did\nactually use, in early Britain, and may have retained into the early\nmiddle ages, say 400-700 A.D.\n\nThis mixed set of objects, _plus_ the sites in which they were found, and\na huge canoe, 35 feet long, is the material part of the Clyde Mystery.\nThe querns and canoe and stone-polishers, and bones, and horns are\ncommonly found, we say, in dwellings of about 400-700 A.D.  The peculiar\nand enigmatic things are _not_ elsewhere known to Scottish antiquaries.\nHow did the two sets of objects come to be all mixed up together, in an\nold hill fort, at Dunbuie on Clyde; and among the wooden foundations of\ntwo mysterious structures, excavated in the mud of the Clyde estuary at\nDumbuck and Langbank, near Dumbarton?  They were dug up between 1896 and\n1902.\n\nThis is the question which has been debated, mainly in newspaper\ncontroversy, for nearly ten years.  A most rambling controversy it has\nbeen, casting its feelers as far as central Australia, in space, and as\nfar back as, say, 1200 B.C. in time.\n\nEither the disputed objects at the Museum are actual relics of life lived\nin the Clyde basin many centuries ago; or the discoverers and excavators\nof the old sites are dogged by a forger who \"dumps down\" false relics of\nkinds unknown to Scottish antiquaries; or some of the unfamiliar objects\nare really old, while others are jocose imitations of these, or--there is\nsome other explanation!\n\nThe modern \"Clyde artists\" are credited by Dr. Robert Munro with \"some\npractical artistic skill,\" and some acquaintance with the very old and\nmysterious designs on great rocks among the neighbouring hills. {4}  What\nman of artistic skill, no conscience, and a knowledge of archaic patterns\nis associated with the Clyde?\n\nThe \"faker\" is not the mere mischievous wag of the farm-house or the\ncountry shop.  It is possible that a few \"interpolations\" of false\nobjects have been made by another and less expert hand, but the weight of\nthe problem rests on these alternatives,--the disputed relics which were\nfound are mainly genuine, though unfamiliar; or a forger not destitute of\nskill and knowledge has invented and executed them--or--there is some\nother explanation.\n\nThree paths, as usual, are open to science, in the present state of our\nknowledge of the question.  We may pronounce the unfamiliar relics\ngenuine, and prove it if we can.  We may declare them to be false\nobjects, manufactured within the last ten years.  We may possess our\nsouls in patience, and \"put the objects to a suspense account,\" awaiting\nthe results of future researches and of new information.\n\nThis attitude of suspense is not without precedent in archaeology.\n\"Antiquarian lore,\" as Dr. Munro remarks by implication, _can_\n\"distinguish between true and false antiquities.\" {5a}  But time is\nneeded for the verdict, as we see when Dr. Munro describes \"the Breonio\nControversy\" about disputed stone objects, a controversy which began in\n1885, and appears to be undecided in 1905. {5b}  I propose to advocate\nthe third course; the waiting game, and I am to analyse Dr. Munro's very\nable arguments for adopting the second course, and deciding that the\nunfamiliar relics are assuredly impostures of yesterday's manufacture.\n\n\n\n\nII--DR. MUNRO'S BOOK ON THE MYSTERY\n\n\nDr. Munro's acute and interesting book, _Archaeology and False\nAntiquities_, {6} does not cover the whole of its amusing subject.  False\ngems, coins, inscriptions, statues, and pictures are scarcely touched\nupon; the author is concerned chiefly with false objects of the\npre-historic and \"proto-historic\" periods, and with these as bearing on\nthe Clyde controversy of 1896-1905.  Out of 292 pages, at least 130 treat\ndirectly of that local dispute: others bear on it indirectly.\n\nI have taken great interest in this subject since I first heard of it by\naccident, in the October or November of 1898.  As against Dr. Munro, from\nwhose opinions I provisionally dissent, I may be said to have no _locus\nstandi_.  He is an eminent and experienced archaeologist in matters of\nEuropean pre-historic and proto-historic times.  Any one is at liberty to\nsay of me what another celebrated archaeologist, Mr. Charles Hercules\nRead, said, in a letter to Dr. Munro, on December 7, 1901, about some one\nelse: a person designated as \"---,\" and described as \"a merely literary\nman, who cannot understand that to practised people the antiquities are\nas readable as print, and a good deal more accurate.\" {7}  But though\n\"merely literary,\" like Mr. \"---,\" I have spent much time in the study of\ncomparative anthropology; of the manners, ideas, customs, implements, and\nsacred objects of uncivilised and peasant peoples.  Mr. \"---\" may not\nhave done so, whoever he is.  Again, as \"practised people\" often vary\nwidely in their estimates of antique objects, or objects professing to be\nantique, I cannot agree with Mr. Read that \"the antiquities\" are \"as\nreadable as print,\"--if by \"antiquities\" he means antiquities in general.\nAt the British Museum I can show Mr. Read several admirable specimens of\nthe art of faking, standing, like the Abomination of Desolation, where\nthey ought not.  It was not by unpractised persons that they were\npurchased at the national expense.  We are all fallible, even the oldest\nof us.  I conceive Mr. Read, however, to mean the alleged and disputed\n\"antiquities\" of the Clyde sites, and in that case, his opinion that they\nare a \"curious swindle\" is of the most momentous weight.\n\nBut, as to practised opinion on antiquities in general, Dr. Munro and I\nagree that it is really very fallible, now and again.  The best\nauthorities, he proves, may read antiquities differently.  He is not\ncertain that he has not himself, on occasion, taken \"fakes\" for true\nantiques. {8a}  The _savants_ of the Louvre were lately caught by the\nnotorious \"tiara of Saitaphernes,\" to the pecuniary loss of France; were\ncaught on April 1, 1896, and were made _poissons d'Avril_, to the golden\ntune of 200,000 francs (8000 pounds).\n\nAgain, M. Lartet and Mr. Christy betted a friend that he could not hoax\nthem with a forged palaeolithic drawing.  They lost their bet, and, after\nM. Lartet's death, the forged object was published, as genuine, in the\nscientific journal, _Materiaux_ (1874). {8b}  As M. Reinach says of\nanother affair, it was \"a _fumisterie_.\" {8c}  Every archaeologist may be\nthe victim of a _fumisterie_, few have wholly escaped, and we find Dr.\nFurtwangler and Mr. Cecil Smith at odds as to whether a head of Zeus in\nterra-cotta be of the fifth century B.C. or, quite the contrary, of the\nnineteenth or twentieth century A.D.\n\nVerily all \"practised people\" do not find \"antiquities as readable as\nprint.\"  On the other hand, my late friend, Dr. A. S. Murray, Keeper of\nClassical Antiquities in the British Museum, \"read\" the Mycenaean\nantiquities erroneously, placing them many centuries too late.  M. de\nMortillet reckoned them forgeries, and wrote of the discoverer, Dr.\nSchliemann, and even of Mrs. Schliemann, in a tone unusual in men of\nscience and gentlemen.\n\nThe great palaeolithic discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes, the very\nbases of our study of the most ancient men, were \"read\" as impostures by\nmany \"practised people.\"  M. Cartailhac, again, has lately, in the most\ncandid and honourable way, recanted his own original disbelief in certain\nwall-paintings in Spanish caves, of the period called \"palaeolithic,\" for\nlong suspected by him of being \"clerical\" impostures. {9}\n\nThus even the most \"practised people,\" like General Councils, \"may err\nand have erred,\" when confronted either with forgeries, or with objects\nold in fact, but new to them.  They have _not_ always found antiquities\n\"as readable as print.\"  Dr. Munro touches but faintly on these \"follies\nof the wise,\" but they are not unusual follies.  This must never be\nforgotten.\n\nWhere \"practised people\" may be mistaken through a too confirmed\nscepticism, the \"merely literary man\" may, once in an azure moon, happen\nto be right, or not demonstrably wrong; that is my excuse for differing,\nprovisionally, from \"practised people.\"  It is only provisionally that I\ndissent from Dr. Munro as to some of the points at issue in the Clyde\ncontroversy.  I entered on it with very insufficient knowledge: I remain,\nwe all remain, imperfectly informed: and like people rich in\npractice,--Dr. Joseph Anderson, and Sir Arthur Mitchell,--I \"suspend my\njudgement\" for the present. {10}\n\nThis appears to me the most scientific attitude.  Time is the great\nrevealer.  But Dr. Munro, as we saw, prefers not to suspend his judgment,\nand says plainly and pluckily that the disputed objects in the Clyde\ncontroversy are \"spurious\"; are what the world calls \"fakes,\" though from\na delicate sense of the proprieties of language, he will not call them\n\"forgeries.\"  They are reckoned by him among \"false antiquities,\" while,\nfor my part, I know not of what age they are, but incline I believe that\nmany of them are not of the nineteenth century.  This is the extent of\nour difference.  On the other hand I heartily concur with Dr. Munro in\nregretting that his advice,--to subject the disputed objects at the\nearliest possible stage of the proceedings, to a jury of experts,--was\nnot accepted. {11a}\n\nOne observation must be made on Dr. Munro's logical method, as announced\nby himself.  \"My role, on the present occasion, is to advocate the\ncorrectness of my own views on purely archaeological grounds, without any\nspecial effort to refute those of my opponents.\" {11b}  As my view is\nthat the methods of Dr. Munro are perhaps,--and I say it with due\ndeference, and with doubt,--capable of modification, I shall defend my\nopinions as best I may.  Moreover, my views, in the course of seven long\nyears (1898-1905) have necessarily undergone some change, partly in\ndeference to the arguments of Dr. Munro, partly because much new\ninformation has come to my knowledge since 1898-99.  Moreover, on one\noccasion, I misstated my own view, and, though I later made my real\nopinion perfectly dear, some confusion was generated.\n\n\n\n\nIII--THE CLYDE CONTROVERSY\n\n\nIt is necessary, after these prefatory remarks, to give an account of the\nrise of the Clyde controversy, and I may be pardoned for following the\nexample of Dr. Munro, who adds, and cannot but add, a pretty copious\nnarrative of his own share in the discussion.  In 1896, the hill fort of\nDunbuie, \"about a mile-and-a-half to the east of Dumbarton Castle, and\nthree miles to the west of the Roman Wall,\" {12} was discovered by Mr. W.\nA. Donnelly: that is to say, Mr. Donnelly suggested that the turf might\nconceal something worth excavating, and the work was undertaken, under\nhis auspices, by the Helensburgh Antiquarian Society.\n\nAs Mr. Donnelly's name constantly occurs in the discussion, it may be as\nwell to state that, by profession, he is an artist,--a painter and\ndesigner in black and white,--and that, while keenly interested in the\npre-historic or proto-historic relics of Clydesdale, he makes no claim to\nbe regarded as a trained archaeologist, or widely-read student.  Thus,\nafter Mr. Donnelly found a submarine structure at Dumbuck in the estuary\nof the Clyde, Dr. Munro writes: \"I sent Mr. Donnelly some literature on\ncrannogs.\" {13a}  So Mr. Donnelly, it appears, had little book lore as to\ncrannogs.  He is, in fact, a field worker in archaeology, rather than an\narchaeologist of the study and of books.  He is a member of a local\narchaeological Society at Helensburgh on the Clyde, and, before he found\nthe hill fort of Dunbuie, he had discovered an interesting set of \"cup\nand ring\" marked rocks at Auchentorlie, \"only a short distance from\nDunbuie.\" {13b}\n\nMr. Donnelly's position, then, as regards archaeological research, was,\nin 1896-1898, very like that of Dr. Schliemann when he explored Troy.\nLike Dr. Schliemann he was no erudite savant, but an enthusiast with an\neye for likely sites.  Like Dr. Schliemann he discovered certain objects\nhitherto unknown to Science, (at least to Scottish science,) and, like\nDr. Schliemann, he has had to take \"the consequences of being found in\nsuch a situation.\"\n\nIt must be added that, again like Dr. Schliemann he was not an excavator\nof trained experience.  I gather that he kept no minute and hourly-dated\nlog-book of his explorations, with full details as to the precise\npositions of the objects discovered, while, again like Dr. Schliemann, he\nhad theories of his own, with some of which I do not concur.\n\nDr. Munro justly insists on \"the absolute necessity of correctly\nrecording the facts and relics brought to light by excavations.\" {14a}  An\nexcavator should be an engineer, or be accompanied by a specialist who\ncan assign exact measurements for the position of every object\ndiscovered.  Thus Dr. Munro mentions the case of a man who, while digging\na drain in his garden in Scotland, found an adze of jade and a\npre-historic urn.  Dr. Munro declares, with another expert, that the jade\nadze is \"a modern Australian implement,\" which is the more amazing as I\nam not aware that the Australians possess any jade.  The point is that\nthe modern Australian adze was _not_, as falsely reported, in the pre-\nhistoric urn. {14b}\n\nHere I cannot but remark that while Dr. Munro justly regrets the absence\nof record as to precise place of certain finds, he is not more hospitable\nto other finds of which the precise locality is indicated.  Things are\nfound by Mr. Bruce as he clears out the interior of a canoe, or imbedded\nin the dock on the removal of the canoe, {15} or in the \"kitchen\nmidden\"--the refuse heap--but Dr. Munro does not esteem the objects more\nhighly because we have a distinct record as to the precise place of their\nfinding.\n\n\n\n\nIV--DUNBUIE\n\n\nTo return to the site first found, the hill fort of Dunbuie, excavated in\n1896.  Dr. Munro writes:\n\n   \"There is no peculiarity about the position or structure of this fort\n   which differentiates it from many other forts in North Britain.  Before\n   excavation there were few indications that structural remains lay\n   beneath the debris, but when this was accomplished there were exposed\n   to view the foundations of a circular wall, 13.5 feet thick, enclosing\n   a space 30 to 32 feet in diameter.  Through this wall there was one\n   entrance passage on a level with its base, 3 feet 2 inches in width,\n   protected by two guard chambers, one on each side, analogous to those\n   so frequently met with in the Brochs.  The height of the remaining\n   part of the wall varied from 18 inches to 3 feet 6 inches.  The\n   interior contained no dividing walls nor any indications of secondary\n   occupation.\"\n\nThus writes Dr. Munro (pp. 130, 131), repeating his remarks on p. 181\nwith this addition,\n\n   \"Had any remains of intra-mural chambers or of a stone stair been\n   detected it would unhesitatingly be pronounced a broch; nor, in the\n   absence of such evidence, can it be definitely dissociated from that\n   peculiar class of Scottish buildings, because the portion of wall then\n   remaining was not sufficiently high to exclude the possibility of\n   these broch characteristics having been present at a higher level--a\n   structural deviation which has occasionally been met with.\"\n\n\"All the brochs,\" Dr. Munro goes on, \"hitherto investigated have shown\nmore or less precise evidence of a post-Roman civilisation, their range,\naccording to Dr. Joseph Anderson, being \"not earlier than the fifth and\nnot later than the ninth century.\" {17}  \"Although from more recent\ndiscoveries, as, for example, the broch of Torwodlee, Selkirkshire, there\nis good reason to believe that their range might legitimately be brought\nnearer to Roman times, it makes no difference in the correctness of the\nstatement that they all belong to the Iron Age.\"\n\nSo far the \"broch,\" or hill fort, was not unlike other hill forts and\nbrochs, of which there are hundreds in Scotland.  But many of the relics\nalleged to have been found in the soil of Dunbuie were unfamiliar in\ncharacter in these islands.  There was not a shard of pottery, there was\nnot a trace of metal, but absence of such things is no proof that they\nwere unknown to the inhabitants of the fort.  I may go further, and say\nthat if any person were capable of interpolating false antiquities, they\nwere equally capable of concealing such real antiquities in metal or\npottery as they might find; to support their theories, or to serve other\nprivate and obscure ends.\n\nThus, at Langbank, were found a bronze brooch, and a \"Late Celtic\" (200\nB.C.?--A.D.) comb.  These, of course, upset the theory held by some\ninquirers, that the site was Neolithic, that is, was very much earlier\nthan the Christian era.  If the excavators held that theory, and were\nunscrupulous, was it not as easy for them to conceal the objects which\ndisproved the hypothesis, as to insert the disputed objects--which do not\nprove it?\n\nOf course Dr. Munro nowhere suggests that any excavator is the guilty\n\"faker.\"\n\nI now quote Dr. Munro's account of the _unfamiliar_ objects alleged to\nhave been found in Dunbuie.  He begins by citing the late Mr. Adam\nMillar, F.S.A.Scot., who described Dunbuie in the _Proceedings S. A.\nScot._ (vol. XXX. pp. 291-308.)\n\n   \"The fort,\" writes Mr. Millar, \"has been examined very thoroughly by\n   picking out the stones in the interior one by one, and riddling the\n   fine soil and small stones.  The same treatment has been applied to\n   the refuse heap which was found on the outside, and the result of the\n   search is a very remarkable collection of weapons, implements,\n   ornaments, and figured stones.\"  There is no description of the\n   precise position of any of these relics in the ruins, with the\n   exception of two upper stones of querns and a limpet shell having on\n   its inner surface the presentation of a human face, which are stated\n   to have been found in the interior of the fort.  No objects of metal\n   or fragments of pottery were discovered in course of the excavations,\n   and of bone there were only two small pointed objects and an awl\n   having a perforation at one end.  The majority of the following worked\n   objects of stone, bone, and shell are so remarkable and archaic in\n   character that their presence in a fort, which cannot be placed\n   earlier than the Broch period, and probably long after the departure\n   of the Romans from North Britain, has led some archaeologists to\n   question their genuineness as relics of any phase of Scottish\n   civilisation.\n\n   OBJECTS OF STONE.--Nine spear-heads, like arrow-points, of slate, six\n   of which have linear patterns scratched on them.  Some are perforated\n   with round holes, and all were made by grinding and polishing.  One\n   object of slate, shaped like a knife, was made by chipping.  \"This\n   knife,\" says Mr. Millar, \"has a feature common to all these slate\n   weapons--they seem to have been saturated with oil or fat, as water\n   does not adhere to them, but runs off as from a greasy surface.\"\n   Another highly ornamental piece of cannel coal is in the form of a\n   short spear-head with a thickish stem.  The stem is adorned with a\n   series of hollows and ridges running across it; radiating lines\n   running from the stem to the margin.  Another group of these\n   remarkable objects shows markings of the cup-and-ring order, circles,\n   linear incisions, and perforations.  Some of these ornamentations are\n   deeply cut on the naturally rough surfaces of flat pieces of\n   sandstone, whilst others are on smooth stones artificially prepared\n   for the purpose.  A small piece of flint was supposed to have been\n   inserted into a partially burnt handle.  There are several examples of\n   hammer-stones of the ordinary crannog type, rubbing-stones,\n   whetstones, as well as a large number of water-worn stones which might\n   have been used as hand-missiles or sling-stones.  These latter were\n   not native to the hill, and must have been transported from burns in\n   the neighbourhood.  There are also two upper quern stones.\n\n   MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS.--A number of splintered pieces of bone, without\n   showing any other evidence of workmanship, have linear incisions, like\n   those on some of the stones, which suggest some kind of cryptic\n   writing like ogams.  There are also a few water-worn shells, like\n   those seen on a sandy beach, having round holes bored through them and\n   sharply-cut scratches on their pearly inner surface.  But on the whole\n   the edible molluscs are but feebly represented, as only five oyster,\n   one cockle, three limpet, and two mussel shells were found, nearly all\n   of which bore marks of some kind of ornamentation.  But perhaps the\n   most grotesque object in the whole collection is the limpet shell with\n   a human face sculptured on its inner surface.\n\n   \"The eyes,\" writes Mr. Millar, \"are represented by two holes, the nose\n   by sharply-cut lines, and the mouth by a well-drawn waved line, the\n   curves which we call Cupid's bow being faithfully followed.  There is\n   nothing at all of an archaic character, however, in this example of\n   shell-carving.  We found it in the interior of the fort; it was one of\n   the early finds--nothing like it has been found since; at the same\n   time we have no reason for assuming that this shell was placed in the\n   fort on purpose that we might find it.  The fact that it was taken out\n   of the fort is all that we say about it.\"\n\n   Mr. Millar's opinion of these novel handicraft remains was that they\n   were the products of a pre-Celtic civilisation.  \"The articles found,\"\n   he writes, \"are strongly indicative of a much earlier period than post-\n   Roman; they point to an occupation of a tribe in their Stone Age.\"\n\n   \"We have no knowledge of the precise position in which the 'queer\n   things' of Dunbuie were found, with the exception of the limpet shell\n   showing the carved human face which, according to a recent statement\n   in the _Journal of the British Archaeological Association_, September,\n   1901, \"was excavated from a crevice in the living rock, over which\n   tons of debris had rested.  When taken out, the incrustations of dirt\n   prevented any carving from being seen; it was only after being dried\n   and cleaned that the 'face' appeared, as well as the suspension holes\n   on each side.\"\n\n   So, this unique piece of art was in the fort before it became a ruin\n   and otherwise presented evidence of great antiquity; but yet it is\n   stated in Mr. Millar's report that there was \"nothing at all of an\n   archaic character in this example of shell-carving.\" {21}\n\nI have nothing to do with statements made in _The Journal of the British\nArchaeological Association_ about \"_a carved oyster shell_.\"  I stick to\nthe limpet shell of Mr. Millar, which, to my eyes looks anything but\narchaic.\n\n\n\n\nV--HOW I CAME INTO THE CONTROVERSY\n\n\nThus far, I was so much to be sympathised with as never to have heard of\nthe names of Dunbuie and of Mr. Donnelly.  In this ignorance I remained\ntill late in October or early in November 1898.  On an afternoon of that\ndate I was reading the proof sheets, kindly lent to me by Messrs.\nMacmillan, of _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_ by Messrs. Spencer\nand Gillen, a work, now justly celebrated, which was published early in\n1899.  I was much interested on finding, in this book, that certain\ntribes of Central Australia,--the Arunta \"nation\" and the\nKaitish,--_paint_ on sacred and other rocks the very same sorts of\narchaic designs as Mr. Donnelly found _incised_ at Auchentorlie (of which\nI had not then heard).  These designs are familiar in many other parts of\nScotland and of the world.  They play a great part in the initiations and\nmagic of Central Australia.  Designs of the same class are incised, by\nthe same Australian tribes, on stones of various shapes and sizes,\nusually portable, and variously shaped which are styled _churinga nanja_.\n(_Churinga_ merely means anything \"sacred,\" that is, with a superstitious\nsense attached to it).  They also occur on wooden slats, (_churinga\nirula_,) commonly styled \"Bull roarers\" by Europeans.  The tribes are now\nin a \"siderolithic\" stage, using steel when they can get it, stone when\nthey cannot.  If ever they come to abandon stone implements, while\nretaining their magic or religion, they will keep on using their stone\n_churinga nanja_.\n\nWhile I was studying these novel Australian facts, in the autumn of 1898,\na friend, a distinguished member of Clan Diarmaid, passing by my window,\nin London, saw me, and came in.  He at once began to tell me that, in the\nestuary of the Clyde, and at Dunbuie, some one had found small stones,\nmarked with the same archaic kinds of patterns, \"cup-and-ring,\" half\ncircles, and so forth, as exist on our inscribed rocks, cists, and other\nlarge objects.  I then showed him the illustrations of portable stones in\nAustralia, with archaic patterns, not then published, but figured in the\nproof sheets of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's work.  My friend told me,\nlater, that he had seen small stone incised with concentric circles,\nfound in the excavation of a hill fort near Tarbert, in Kintyre.  He made\na sketch of this object, from memory: if found in Central Australia it\nwould have been reckoned a _churinga nanja_.\n\nI was naturally much interested in my friend's account of objects found\nin the Clyde estuary, which, _as far as his description went_, resembled\nin being archaically decorated the _churinga nanja_ discovered by Messrs.\nSpencer and Gillen in Central Australia.  I wrote an article on the\nsubject of the archaic decorative designs, as found all over the world,\nfor the _Contemporary Review_. {24}  I had then seen only pen and ink\nsketches of the objects, sent to me by Mr. Donnelly, and a few casts,\nwhich I passed on to an eminent authority.  One of the casts showed a\nround stone with concentric circles.  I know not what became of the\noriginal or of the casts.\n\nWhile correcting proofs of this article, I read in the _Glasgow Herald_\n(January 7, 1899) a letter by Dr. Munro, impugning the authenticity of\none set of finds by Mr. Donnelly, in a pile-structure at Dumbuck, on the\nClyde, near Dumbarton.  I wrote to the _Glasgow Herald_, adducing the\nAustralian _churinga nanja_ as parallel to Mr. Donnelly's inscribed\nstones, and thus my share in the controversy began.  What Dr. Munro and I\nthen wrote may be passed over in this place.\n\n\n\n\nVI--DUMBUCK\n\n\nIt was in July 1898, that Mr. Donnelly, who had been prospecting during\ntwo years for antiquities in the Clyde estuary, found at low tide,\ncertain wooden stumps, projecting out of the mud at low water.  On August\n16, 1898, Dr. Munro, with Mr. Donnelly, inspected these stumps, \"before\nexcavations were made.\" {25a}  It is not easy to describe concisely the\nresults of their inspection, and of the excavations which followed.  \"So\nfar the facts\" (of the site, not of the alleged relics), \"though highly\ninteresting as evidence of the hand of man in the early navigation of the\nClyde basin present nothing very remarkable or important,\" says Dr.\nMunro. {25b}\n\nI shall here quote Dr. Munro's descriptions of what he himself observed\nat two visits, of August 16, October 12, 1898, to Dumbuck.  For the\npresent I omit some speculative passages as to the original purpose of\nthe structure.\n\n   \"The so-called Dumbuck 'crannog,' that being the most convenient name\n   under which to describe the submarine wooden structures lately\n   discovered by Mr. W. A. Donnelly in the estuary of the Clyde, lies\n   about a mile to the east of the rock of Dumbarton, and about 250 yards\n   within high-water mark.  At every tide its site is covered with water\n   to a depth of three to eight feet, but at low tide it is left high and\n   dry for a few hours, so that it was only during these tidal intervals\n   that the excavations could be conducted.\n\n   On the occasion of my first visit to Dumbuck, before excavations were\n   begun, Mr. Donnelly and I counted twenty-seven piles of oak, some 5 or\n   8 inches in diameter, cropping up for a few inches through the mud, in\n   the form of a circle 56 feet in diameter.  The area thus enclosed was\n   occupied with the trunks of small trees laid horizontally close to\n   each other and directed towards the centre, and so superficial that\n   portions of them were exposed above the surrounding mud, but all\n   hollows and interstices were levelled up with sand or mud.  The tops\n   of the piles which projected above the surface of the log-pavement\n   were considerably worn by the continuous action of the muddy waters\n   during the ebb and flow of the tides, a fact which suggested the\n   following remarkable hypothesis: 'Their tops are shaped in an oval,\n   conical form, meant to make a joint in a socket to erect the\n   superstructure on.'  These words are quoted from a 'Report of a\n   Conjoint Visit of the Geological and Philosophical Societies to the\n   Dumbuck Crannog, 8th April, 1899.' {26}\n\n   The result of the excavations, so far as I can gather from\n   observations made during my second visit to the 'crannog,' and the\n   descriptions and plans published by various societies, may be briefly\n   stated as follows.\n\n   The log-pavement within the circle of piles was the upper of three\n   similar layers of timbers placed one above the other, the middle layer\n   having its beams lying transversely to that immediately above and\n   below it.  One of the piles (about 4 feet long) when freshly drawn up,\n   clearly showed that it had been pointed by a sharp metal implement,\n   the cutting marks being like those produced by an ordinary axe.  The\n   central portion (about 6 feet in diameter) had no woodwork, and the\n   circular cavity thus formed, when cleared of fallen stones, showed\n   indications of having been walled with stones and clay.  Surrounding\n   this walled cavity--the so-called 'well' of the explorers, there was a\n   kind of coping, in the form of five or six 'raised mounds,' arranged\n   'rosette fashion,' in regard to which Mr. Donnelly thus writes:\n\n   'One feature that strikes me very much in the configuration of the\n   structure in the centre is those places marked X, fig. 20, around\n   which I have discovered the presence of soft wood piles 5 inches in\n   diameter driven into the ground, and bounding the raised stone\n   arrangement; the stones in these rude circular pavements or cairns are\n   laid slightly slanting inwards.' {27}\n\n   From this description, and especially the 'slanting inwards' of these\n   'circular pavements' or 'cairns,' it would appear that they formed the\n   bases for wooden stays to support a great central pole, a suggestion\n   which, on different grounds, has already been made by Dr. David\n   Murray.\n\n   The surrounding piles were also attached to the horizontal logs by\n   various ingenious contrivances, such as a fork, a natural bend, an\n   artificial check, or a mortised hole; and some of the beams were\n   pinned together by tree-nails, the perforations of which were\n   unmistakable.  This binding together of the wooden structures is a\n   well-known feature in crannogs, as was demonstrated by my\n   investigations at Lochlee and elsewhere. {28a}  It would be still more\n   necessary in a substratum of timbers that was intended (as will be\n   afterwards explained) to bear the weight of a superincumbent cairn.\n   Underneath the layers of horizontal woodwork some portions of heather,\n   bracken, and brushwood were detected, and below this came a succession\n   of thin beds of mud, loam, sand, gravel, and finally the blue clay\n   which forms the solum of the river valley. {28b}  The piles penetrated\n   this latter, but not deeply, owing to its consistency; and so the blue\n   clay formed an excellent foundation for a structure whose main object\n   was resistance to superincumbent pressure.\n\n   Outside the circle of piles there was, at a distance of 12 to 14 feet,\n   another wooden structure in the shape of a broad ring of horizontal\n   beams and piles which surrounded the central area.  The breadth of\n   this outer ring was 7 feet, and it consisted of some nine rows of\n   beams running circumferentially.  Beyond this lay scattered about some\n   rough cobble stones, as if they had fallen down from a stone structure\n   which had been raised over the woodwork.  The space intervening\n   between these wooden structures was filled up in its eastern third\n   with a refuse heap, consisting of broken and partially burnt bones of\n   various animals, the shells of edible molluscs, and a quantity of\n   ashes and charcoal, evidently the debris of human occupancy.  On the\n   north, or landward side, the outer and inner basements of woodwork\n   appeared to coalesce for 5 or 6 yards, leaving an open space having\n   stones embedded in the mud and decayed wood, a condition of things\n   which suggested a rude causeway.  When Mr. Donnelly drew my attention\n   to this, I demurred to its being so characterised owing to its\n   indefiniteness.  At the outer limit of this so-called causeway, and\n   about 25 feet north-east of the circle of piles, a canoe was\n   discovered lying in a kind of dock, rudely constructed of side stones\n   and wooden piling.  The canoe measures 35.5 feet long, 4 feet broad,\n   and 1.5 foot deep.  It has a square stern with a movable board, two\n   grasping holes near the stem, and three round perforations (2 inches\n   in diameter) in its bottom.  On the north-west border of the\n   log-pavement a massive ladder of oak was found, one end resting on the\n   margin of the log-pavement and the other projecting obliquely into the\n   timberless zone between the former and the outer woodwork.  It is thus\n   described in the _Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical\n   Society_:{29}\n\n   'Made of a slab of oak which has been split from the tree by wedges\n   (on one side little has been done to dress the work), it is 15 feet 3\n   inches long, 2 feet broad, and 3.5 inches thick.  Six holes are cut\n   for steps, 12 inches by 10 inches; the bottom of each is bevelled to\n   an angle of 60 degrees to make the footing level when the ladder is in\n   position.  On one side those holes show signs of wear by long use.'\n\n   An under quern stone, 19 inches in diameter, was found about halfway\n   between the canoe and the margin of the circle of piles, and\n   immediately to the east of the so-called causeway already described.\n\n   I carefully examined the surface of the log-pavement with the view of\n   finding evidence as to the possibility of its having been at any time\n   the habitable area of this strange dwelling-place; but the result was\n   absolutely negative, as not a single particle of bone or ash was\n   discovered in any of its chinks.  This fact, together with the\n   impossibility of living on a surface that is submerged every twelve\n   hours, and the improbability of any land subsidence having taken place\n   since prehistoric times, or any adequate depression from the shrinkage\n   of the under-structures themselves, compels me to summarily reject the\n   theory that the Dumbuck structure in its present form was an ordinary\n   crannog.  The most probable hypothesis, and that which supplies a\n   reasonable explanation of all the facts, is that the woodwork was the\n   foundation of a superstructure of stones built sufficiently high to be\n   above the action of the tides and waves, over which there had been\n   some kind of dwelling-place.  The unique arrangement of the wooden\n   substructures suggests that the central building was in the form of a\n   round tower with very thick walls, like the brochs and other forts of\n   North Britain.  The central space was probably occupied with a pole,\n   firmly fixed at its base in the 'well,' and kept in position by\n   suitable stays, resting partly on the stone 'cairns' already\n   described, partly in wooden sockets fixed into the log-pavement, and\n   partly on the inner wall of the tower.  This suggestion seems to me to\n   be greatly strengthened by the following description of some holed\n   tree-roots in Mr. Bruce's paper to the Scottish Antiquaries: {30}\n\n   'Midway between the centre and the outside piles of the structure what\n   looked at first to be tree-roots or snags were noticed partly imbedded\n   in the sand.  On being washed of the adhering soil, holes of 12 inches\n   wide by 25 inches deep were found cut in them at an angle, to all\n   appearance for the insertion of struts for the support of an upper\n   structure.  On the outside, 14 inches down on either side, holes of 2\n   inches diameter were found intersecting the central hole, apparently\n   for the insertion of a wooden key or trenail to retain the struts.\n   These were found at intervals, and were held in position by stones and\n   smaller jammers.'\n\n   The outer woodwork formed the foundation of another stone structure,\n   of a horseshoe shape, having the open side to the north or landside of\n   the tower, which doubtless was intended as a breakwater.  By means of\n   the ladder placed slantingly against the wall of the central stone\n   building access could be got to the top in all states of the tides.\n\n   The people who occupied this watch-tower ground their own corn, and\n   fared abundantly on beef, mutton, pork, venison, and shell-fish.  The\n   food refuse and other debris were thrown into the space between the\n   central structure and the breakwater, forming in the course of time a\n   veritable kitchen-midden.\n\n   Besides the causeway on the north side, Mr. Bruce describes 'a belt of\n   stones, forming a pavement about six feet wide and just awash with the\n   mud,' extending westwards about twenty yards from the central cavity,\n   till it intersected the breakwater. {31}  These so-called pavements\n   and causeways were probably formed during the construction of the\n   tower with its central pole, or perhaps at the time of its demolition,\n   as it would be manifestly inconvenient to transport stones to or from\n   such a place, in the midst of so much slush, without first making some\n   kind of firm pathway.  Their present superficial position alone\n   demonstrates the absurdity of assigning the Dumbuck structures to\n   Neolithic times, as if the only change effected in the bed of the\n   Clyde since then would be the deposition of a few inches of mud.  At a\n   little distance to the west of these wooden structures there is the\n   terminal end of a modern ditch ('the burn' of Mr. Alston), extending\n   towards the shore, and having on its eastern bank a row of stepping-\n   stones; a fact which, in my opinion, partly accounts for the\n   demolition of the stonework, which formerly stood over them.  So far,\n   the facts disclosed by the excavations of the structures at Dumbuck,\n   though highly interesting as evidence of the hand of man in the early\n   navigation of the Clyde basin, present nothing very remarkable or\n   improbable.  It is when we come to examine the strange relics which\n   the occupants of this habitation have left behind them that the real\n   difficulties begin.\"\n\nDr. Munro next describes the disputed things found at Dumbuck.  They were\nanalogous to those alleged to have been unearthed at Dunbuie.  They were\n\n   \"A number of strange objects like spear-heads or daggers, showing more\n   or less workmanship, and variously ornamented.  One great spear-head\n   (figure 1), like an arrow-point, is 11 inches long and 4.75 inches\n   wide at the barbs.  The stem is perforated with two holes, in one of\n   which there was a portion of an oak pin.  It has a flat body and\n   rounded edges, and is carefully finished by rubbing and grinding.  One\n   surface is ornamented with three cup-marks from which lines radiate\n   like stars or suns, and the other has only small cups and a few\n   transverse lines.  There are some shaped stones, sometimes perforated\n   for suspension, made of the same material; while another group of\n   similar objects is made of cannel coal.  All these are highly\n   ornamented by a fantastic combination of circles, dots, lines, cup-and-\n   rings with or without gutters, and perforations.  A small pebble\n   (plate XV. no. 10) shows, on one side, a boat with three men plying\n   their oars, and on the other an incised outline of a left hand having\n   a small cup-and-ring in the palm.  The most sensational objects in the\n   collection are, however, four rude figures, cut out of shale (figs. 50-\n   53), representing portions of the human face and person.  One,\n   evidently a female (figure 2), we are informed was found at the bottom\n   of the kitchen midden, a strange resting-place for a goddess; the\n   other three are grotesque efforts to represent a human face.  There\n   are also several oyster-shells, ornamented like some of the shale\n   ornaments, and very similar to the oyster-shell ornaments of Dunbuie.\n   A splinter of a hard stone is inserted into the tine of a deer-horn as\n   a handle (plate xiii. no. 5); and another small blunt implement (no.\n   1) has a bone handle.  A few larger stones with cup-marks and some\n   portions of partially worked pieces of shale complete the art gallery\n   of Dumbuck.\"\n\nIt seemed as if some curse were on Mr. Donnelly!  Whether he discovered\nan unique old site of human existence in the water or on the land, some\nviewless fiend kept sowing the soil with _bizarre_ objects unfamiliar to\nDr. Munro, and by him deemed incongruous with the normal and known\nfeatures of human life on such sites.\n\n\n\n\nVII--LANGBANK\n\n\nThe Curse, (that is, the forger,) unwearied and relentless, next smote\nMr. John Bruce, F.S.A.Scot., merely, as it seems, because he and Mr.\nDonnelly were partners in the perfectly legitimate pastime of\narchaeological exploration.  Mr. Bruce's share of the trouble began at\nDumbuck.  The canoe was found, the genuine canoe.  \"It was at once\ncleared out by myself,\" writes Mr. Bruce.  In the bottom of the canoe he\nfound \"a spear-shaped slate object,\" and \"an ornamented oyster shell,\nwhich has since mouldered away,\" and \"a stone pendant object, and an\nimplement of bone.\" {34}\n\nSuch objects have no business to be found in a canoe just discovered\nunder the mud of Clyde, and cleared out by Mr. Bruce himself, a man or\naffairs, and of undisputed probity.  In this case the precise site of the\ndubious relics is given, by a man of honour, at first hand.  I confess\nthat my knowledge of human nature does not enable me to contest Mr.\nBruce's written attestation, while I marvel at the astuteness of the\nforger.  As a finder, on this occasion, Mr. Bruce was in precisely the\nsame position as Dr. Munro at Elie when, as he says, \"as the second piece\nof pottery was disinterred by myself, I was able to locate its precise\nposition at six inches below the surface of the relic bed.\" {35}  Mr.\nBruce was able to locate _his_ finds at the bottom of the canoe.\n\nIf I understand Mr. Bruce's narrative, a canoe was found under the mud,\nand was \"cleared out inside,\" by Mr. Bruce himself.  Had the forger\nalready found the canoe, kept the discovery dark, inserted fraudulent\nobjects, and waited for others to rediscover the canoe?  Or was he\npresent at the first discovery, and did he subtly introduce, unnoted by\nany one, four objects of shell, stone, and bone, which he had up his\nsleeve, ready for an opportunity?  One or other alternative must be\ncorrect, and either hypothesis has its difficulties.\n\nMeanwhile Sir Arthur Mitchell, not a credulous savant, says: \"The\nevidence of authenticity in regard to these doubted objects from Dumbuck\nis the usual evidence in such circumstances . . . it is precisely the\nsame evidence of authenticity which is furnished in regard to all the\nclasses of objects found in the Dumbuck exploration--that is, in regard\nto the canoe, the quern, the bones etc.--about the authenticity of which\nno doubts have been expressed, as in regard to objects about which doubts\nhave been expressed.\" {36a}\n\nOf another object found by a workman at Dumbuck Dr. Munro writes \"is it\nnot very remarkable that a workman, groping with his hand in the mud,\nshould accidentally stumble on this relic--the only one found in this\npart of the site?  Is it possible that he was an unconscious\nthought-reader, and was thus guided to make the discovery\" of a thing\nwhich \"could as readily have been inserted there half-an-hour before?\"\n{36b}\n\nThis passage is \"rote sarcustic.\"  But surely Dr. Munro will not, he\ncannot, argue that Mr. Bruce was \"an unconscious thought-reader\" when\n_he_ \"cleared out\" the interior of the canoe, and found three disputed\nobjects \"in the bottom.\"\n\nIf we are to be \"psychical,\" there seems less evidence for \"unconscious\nthought-reading,\" than for the presence of what are technically styled\n_apports_,--things introduced by an agency of supra-normal character,\nvulgarly called a \"spirit.\"\n\nUndeterred by an event which might have struck fear _in constantem\nvirum_, Mr. Bruce, in the summer of 1901, was so reckless as to discover\na fresh \"submarine wooden structure\" at Langbank, on the left, or south\nbank of the Clyde Estuary opposite Dumbarton Castle.  The dangerous\nobject was cautiously excavated under the superintendence of Mr. Bruce,\nand a committee of the Glasgow Archaeological Society.  To be brief, the\nlarger features were akin to those of Dumbuck, without the central\n\"well,\" or hole, supposed by Dr. Munro to have held the pole of a beacon-\ncairn.  The wooden piles, as at Dumbuck, had been fashioned by \"sharp\nmetal tools.\" {37}  This is Mr. Bruce's own opinion.  This evidence of\nthe use of metal tools is a great point of Dr. Munro, against such\nspeculative minds as deem Dumbuck and Langbank \"neolithic,\" that is, of a\ndate long before the Christian era.  _They_ urged that stone tools could\nhave fashioned the piles, but I know not that partisans of either opinion\nhave made experiments in hewing trees with stone-headed axes, like the\ningenious Monsieur Hippolyte Muller in France. {38a}  I am, at present,\nof opinion that all the sites are of an age in which iron was well known\nto the natives, and bronze was certainly known.\n\nThe relics at Langbank were (1) of a familiar, and (2) of an unfamiliar\nkind.  There was (1) a small bone comb with a \"Late Celtic\" (200 B.C.-?\nA.D.) design of circles and segments of circles; there was a very small\npenannular brooch of brass or bronze; there were a few cut fragments of\ndeer horn, pointed bones, stone polishers, and so forth, all familiar to\nscience and acceptable. {38b}\n\nOn the other hand, the Curse fell on Mr. Bruce in the shape of two\nperforated shale objects: on one was cut a grotesque face, on the other\ntwo incomplete concentric circles, \"a stem line with little nicks,\" and\ntwo vague incised marks, which may, or may not, represent \"fragments of\ndeer horn.\" {38c}\n\nWe learn from Mr. Bruce that he first observed the Langbank circle of\nstones from the window of a passing train, and that he made a few slight\nexcavations, apparently at the end of September, 1901.  More formal\nresearch was made in October; and again, under the superintendence of\nmembers of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, in September, October,\n1902.  No members of the Glasgow Committee were present when either the\nundisputed Late Celtic comb, or the inscribed, perforated, and disputed\npieces of cannel coal were discovered.  Illustrations of these objects\nand of the bronze penannular ring are here given, (figures 1, 2, 3, 4),\n(two shale objects are omitted,) by the kindness of the Glasgow\nArchaeological Society (_Transactions_, vol. v. p. 1).\n\nThe brooch (allowed to be genuine) \"might date from Romano-British times,\nsay 100-400 A.D. to any date up to late mediaeval times.\" {39}  Good\nevidence to date, in a wide sense, would be the \"osseous remains,\" the\nbones left in the refuse at Langbank and Dumbuck.  Of the bones, I only\ngather as peculiarly interesting, that Dr. Bryce has found those of _Bos\nLongifrons_.  Of _Bos Longifrons_ as a proof of date, I know little.  Mr.\nRidgeway, Disney Professor of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge,\nis not \"a merely literary man.\"  In his work _The Early Age of Greece_,\nvol. i., pp. 334, 335 (Cambridge University Press, 1901), Mr. Ridgeway\nspeaks of _Bos_ as the Celtic ox, co-eval with the Swiss Lake Dwellings,\nand known as _Bos brachyceros_--\"short horn\"--so styled by Rutimeyer.  If\nhe is \"Celtic\" I cannot say how early _Bos_ may have existed among the\nCelts of Britain, but the Romans are thought by some persons to have\nbrought the Celtic ox to the Celts of our island.  If this be so, the\nClyde sites are not earlier (or _Bos_ in these sites is not earlier) than\nthe Roman invasion.  He lasted into the seventh or eighth centuries A.D.\nat least, and is found on a site discovered by Dr. Munro at Elie. {40a}\nMeanwhile archaeology is so lazy, that, after seven years, Dr. Bryce's\n\"reports on the osseous remains\" of Langbank and Dumbuck is but lately\npublished. {40b}\n\n{ Figs. 1, 2: p40a.jpg}\n\nDr. Bryce, in his report to the Glasgow Archaeological Society, says that\n\"_Bos Longifrons_ has a wide range in time, from Neolithic down to\nperhaps even medieval times.  It was the domestic ox in Scotland for an\nunknown period, before, during, and for an unknown time after the Roman\ninvasion. . . .  The occurrence of extinct, probably long extinct,\nbreeds, and these only, make the phenomena in this respect at Langbank\nexactly comparable with those observed at sites of pile buildings in\nScotland generally, and thus it becomes indirect evidence against the\nthesis that the structure belongs to some different category, and to\nquite recent times.\" {40c}\n\n{ Fig. 3: p40b.jpg}\n\nThe evidence of the bones, then, denotes any date except a relatively\nrecent date, of 1556-1758; contrary to an hypothesis to be touched on\nlater.  It follows, from the presence of _Bos_ at Elie (700 A.D.) that\nthe occupants of the Clyde sites at Langbank may have lived there as late\nas, say, 750 A.D.  But when they _began_ to occupy the sites is another\nquestion.\n\n{ Fig. 4: p40c.jpg}\n\nIf Roman objects are found, as they are, in brochs which show many relics\nof bronze, it does not follow that the brochs had not existed for\ncenturies before the inhabitants acquired the waifs and strays of Roman\ncivilisation.  In the Nine Caithness Brochs described by Dr. Joseph\nAnderson, {41} there was a crucible . . . with a portion of melted\nbronze, a bronze ring, moulds for ingots, an ingot of bronze, bits of\nRoman \"Samian ware,\" but no iron.  We can be sure that the broch folk\nwere at some time in touch of Roman goods, brought by traffickers\nperhaps, but how can we be sure that there were no brochs before the\narrival of the Romans?\n\nWe shall return to the question of the disputable relics of the Clyde,\nafter discussing what science has to say about the probable date and\noriginal purpose of the wooden structures in the Clyde estuary.  Nobody,\nit is admitted, forged _them_, but on the other hand Dr. Munro, the one\nmost learned authority on \"Lake Dwellings,\" or \"Crannogs,\" does not think\nthat the sites were ever occupied by regular \"crannogs,\" or lacustrine\nsettlements, Lake Dwellings.\n\n\n\n\nVIII--THE ORIGINAL DATE AND PURPOSE OF DUMBUCK AND LANGBANK\n\n\nThe actual structures of Langbank and Dumbuck, then, are confessedly\nancient remains; they are _not_ of the nineteenth century; they are\n\"unique\" in our knowledge, and we ask, what was the purpose of their\nconstructors, and what is their approximate date?\n\nDr. Munro quotes and discusses {43} a theory, or a tentative guess of Dr.\nDavid Murray.  That scholar writes \"River cairns are commonly built on\npiled platforms, _and my doubt is_ whether this is not the nature of the\nstructure in question\" (Dumbuck).  A river cairn is a solid pile of\nstonework, with, perhaps, a pole in the centre.  At Dumbuck there is the\ncentral \"well\" of six feet in diameter.  Dr. Murray says that a pole\n\"carried down to the bottom would probably be sunk in the clay, which\nwould produce a hole, or well-like cavity similar to that of the Dumbuck\nstructure.\" {44}\n\nIt is not stated that the poles of river cairns usually demand\naccommodation to the extent of six feet of diameter, in the centre of the\nsolid mass of stones, and, as the Langbank site has no central well, the\ntentative conjecture that it was a river cairn is not put forward.  Dr.\nMurray suggests that the Dumbuck cairn \"may have been one of the works of\n1556 or 1612,\" that is, of the modern age of Queen Mary and James VI.  The\nobject of such Corporation cairns \"was no doubt to mark the limit of\ntheir jurisdiction, and also to serve as a beacon to vessels coming up\nthe river.\"\n\nNow the Corporation, with its jurisdiction and beacons, is purely modern.\nIn 1758 the Corporation had a \"lower cairn, if it did not occupy this\nvery spot\" (Dumbuck) \"it stood upon the same line and close to it.  There\nare, however, no remains of such cairn,\" says Dr. Murray.  He cites no\nevidence for the date and expenses of the demolition of the cairn from\nany municipal book of accounts.\n\nNow we have to ask (1) Is there any evidence that men in 1556-1758 lived\non the tops of such modern cairns, dating from the reign of Mary Stuart?\n(2) If men then lived on the top of a cairn till their food refuse became\n\"a veritable kitchen midden,\" as Dr. Munro says, {45} would that refuse\nexhibit bones of _Bos Longifrons_; and over ninety bone implements,\nsharpened antlers of deer, stone polishers, hammer stones, \"a saddle\nstone\" for corn grinding, and the usual _debris_ of sites of the fifth to\nthe twelfth centuries?  (3) Would such a modern site exhibit these\narchaic relics, plus a \"Late Celtic\" comb and \"penannular brooch,\" and\nexhibit not one modern article of metal, or one trace of old clay tobacco\npipes, crockery, or glass?\n\nThe answers to these questions are obvious.  It is not shown that any men\never lived on the tops of cairns, and, even if they did so in modern\ntimes (1556-1758) they could not leave abundant relics of the broch and\ncrannog age (said to be of 400-1100 A.D.), and leave no relics of modern\ndate.  This theory, or suggestion, is therefore demonstrably untenable\nand unimaginable.\n\nDr. Munro, however, \"sees nothing against the supposition\" that \"Dr.\nMurray is right,\" but Dr. Munro's remarks about the hypothesis of modern\ncairns, as a theory \"against which he sees nothing,\" have the air of\nbeing an inadvertent _obiter dictum_.  For, in his conclusion and summing\nup he writes, \"We claim to have established that the structures of\nDunbuie, Dumbuck, and Langbank are remains of inhabited sites of the\nearly-Iron Age, dating to some time between the fifth and twelfth\ncenturies.\" {46a}  I accept this conclusion, and will say as little as\nmay be about the theory of a modern _origin_ of the sites, finally\ndiscarded by Dr. Munro.  I say \"discarded,\" for his theory is that the\nmodern corporation utilised an earlier structure as a cairn or beacon, or\nboundary mark, which is perfectly possible.  But, if this occurred, it\ndoes not affect the question, for this use of the structure has left no\ntraces of any kind.  There are no relics, except relics of the fifth (?)\nto twelfth (?) centuries.\n\nIn an earlier work by Dr. Munro, _Prehistoric Scotland_ (p. 439),\npublished in 1899, he observes that we have no evidence as to the when,\nor how of the removal of the stones of the hypothetical \"Corporation\ncairn,\" or \"round tower with very thick walls,\" {46b} or \"watch tower,\"\nwhich is supposed to have been erected above the wooden sub-structure at\nDumbuck.  He tentatively suggests that the stones may have been used,\nperhaps, for the stone causeway now laid along the bank of the recently\nmade canal, from a point close to the crannog to the railway.  No record\nis cited.  He now offers guesses as to the stones \"in the so-called\npavements and causeways.\"  First, the causeways may have probably been\nmade \"during the construction of the tower with its central pole,\" (here\nthe cairn is a habitable beacon, habitable on all hypotheses,) or, again,\n\"perhaps at the time of its demolition\" about which demolition we know\nnothing, {47a} except that the most of the stones are not now _in situ._\n\nSeveral authentic stone crannogs in Scotland, as to which we have\ninformation, possessed no central pole, but had a stone causeway, still\nextant, leading, _e.g._ from the crannog to the shore of the Ashgrove\nloch, \"a causeway of rough blocks of sandstone slabs.\" {47b}  If one\nstone crannog had a stone causeway, why should this ancient inhabited\ncairn or round tower not possess a stone causeway?  Though useless at\nhigh water, at low water it would afford better going.  In a note to\n_Ivanhoe_, and in his Northern tour of 1814, Scott describes a stone\ncauseway to a broch on an artificial island in Loch Cleik-him-in, near\nLerwick.  Now this loch, says Scott, was, at the time when the broch was\ninhabited, open to the flow of tide water.\n\nAs people certainly did live on these structures of Langbank and Dunbuie\nduring the broch and crannog age (centuries 5-12) it really matters not\nto our purpose _why_ they did so, or _how_ they did so.  Let us suppose\nthat the circular wall of the stone superstructure slanted inwards, as is\nnot unusual.  In that case the habitable area at the top may be reduced\nto any extent that is thought probable, with this limitation:--the\nhabitable space must not be too small for the accommodation of the\npersons who filled up the eastern third of an area of from twelve to\nfourteen feet in breadth, and in some places a foot in thickness, with a\nveritable kitchen-midden, of \"broken and partially burned bones of\nvarious animals, shells of edible molluscs, and a quantity of ashes and\ncharcoal . . . .\" {48}\n\nBut Dr. Munro assures me that the remains discovered could be deposited\nin a few years of regular occupancy by two or three persons.\n\nThe structure certainly yielded habitable space enough to accommodate the\npersons who, in the fifth to twelfth centuries, left these traces of\ntheir occupancy.  Beyond that fact I do not pretend to estimate the\nhabitable area.\n\nWhy did these people live on this structure in the fifth to twelfth\ncenturies?  Almost certainly, not for the purpose of directing the\nnavigation of the Clyde.  At that early date, which I think we may throw\nfar back in the space of the six centuries of the estimate, or may even\nthrow further back still, the Clyde was mainly navigated by canoes of two\nfeet or so in depth, though we ought to have statistics of remains of\nlarger vessels discovered in the river bed. {49a}  I think we may say\nthat the finances of Glasgow, in St. Kentigern's day, about 570-600 A.D.,\nwould not be applied to the construction of Dr. Munro's \"tower with its\ncentral pole and very thick walls\" {49b} erected merely for the purpose\nof warning canoes off shoals in the Clyde.\n\nThat the purpose of the erection was to direct the navigation of Clyde by\ncanoes, or by the long vessels of the Viking raiders, appears to me\nimprobable.  I offer, _periculo meo_, a different conjecture, of which I\nshall show reason to believe that Dr. Munro may not disapprove.\n\nThe number of the dwellers in the structure, and the duration of their\noccupancy, does not affect my argument.  If two natives, in a very few\nyears, could deposit the \"veritable kitchen midden,\" with all the sawn\nhorns, bone implements, and other undisputed relics, we must suppose that\nthe term of occupancy was very brief, or not continuous, and that the\nstone structure \"with very thick walls like the brochs\" represented\nlabours which were utilised for a few years, or seldom.  My doubt is as\nto whether the structure was intended for the benefit of navigators of\nthe Clyde--in shallow canoes!\n\n\n\n\nIX--A GUESS AT THE POSSIBLE PURPOSE OF LANGBANK AND DUMBUCK\n\n\nThe Dumbuck structure, when occupied, adjoined and commanded a _ford_\nacross the undeepened Clyde of uncommercial times.  So Sir Arthur\nMitchell informs us. {51a}  The Langbank structure, as I understand, is\nopposite to that of Dumbuck on the southern side of the river.  If two\nstrongly built structures large enough for occupation exist on opposite\nsides of a ford, their purpose is evident: they guard the ford, like the\ntwo stone camps on each side of the narrows of the Avon at Clifton.\n\nDr. Munro, on the other hand, says, \"the smallness of the habitable area\non both \"sites\" puts them out of the category of military forts.\" {51b}\nMy suggestion is that the structure was so far \"military\" as is implied\nin its being occupied, with Langbank on the opposite bank of Clyde by\nkeepers of the ford.  In 1901 Dr. Munro wrote, \"even the keepers of the\nwatch-tower at the ford of Dumbuck had their quern, and ground their own\ncorn.\" {52a}  This idea has therefore passed through Dr. Munro's mind,\nthough I did not know the fact till after I had come to the same\nhypothesis.  The habitable area was therefore, adequate to the wants of\nthese festive people.  I conjecture that these \"keepers of the\nwatch-tower at the ford\" were military \"watchers of the ford,\" for that\nseems to me less improbable than that \"a round tower with very thick\nwalls, {52b} like the brochs and other forts of North Britain,\" was built\nin the interests of the navigation of Clyde at a very remote period.\n{52c}\n\nBut really all this is of no importance to the argument.  People lived in\nthese sites, perhaps as early as 400 A.D. or earlier.  Such places of\nsafety were sadly needed during the intermittent and turbulent Roman\noccupation.\n\n\n\n\nX--THE LAST DAY AT OLD DUMBUCK\n\n\nSuppose the sites were occupied by the watchers of the ford.  There they\nlived, no man knows how long, on their perch over the waters of Clyde.\nThey dwelt at top of a stone structure some eight feet above low water\nmark, for they could not live on the ground floor, of which the walls,\nfifty feet thick at the base, defied the waves of the high tides driven\nby the west wind.\n\nThere our friends lived, and probably tatooed themselves, and slew _Bos\nLongifrons_ and the deer that, in later ages, would have been forbidden\ngame to them.  If I may trust Bede, born in 672, and finishing his\nHistory in 731, our friends were Picts, and spoke a now unknown language,\n_not_ that of the Bretonnes, or Cymri, or Welsh, who lived on the\nnorthern side of the Firth of Clyde.  Or the occupants of Dumbuck, on the\nnorth side of the river, were Cymri; those of Langbank, on the south\nside, were Picts.  I may at once say that I decline to be responsible for\nBede, and his ethnology, but he lived nearer to those days than we do.\n\nWith their ladder of fifteen feet long, a slab of oak, split from the\ntree by wedges, and having six holes chopped out of the solid for steps,\nthey climbed to their perch, the first floor of their abode.  I never\nheard of a ladder made in this way, but the Zunis used simply to cut\nnotches for the feet in the trunk of a tree, and \"sich a getting up\nstairs\" it must have been, when there was rain, and the notches were wet!\n\nTime passed, the kitchen midden grew, and the Cymri founded Ailcluith,\n\"Clyde rock,\" now Dumbarton; \"to this day,\" says Bede, \"the strongest\ncity of the Britons.\" {54}  Then the Scots came, and turned the Britons\nout; and St. Columba came, and St. Kentigern from Wales (573-574), and\nbegan to spread the Gospel among the pagan Picts and Cymri.  Stone\namulets and stone idols, (if the disputed objects are idols and amulets,)\n\"have had their day,\" (as Bob Acres says \"Damns have had their day,\")\nand, with Ailcluith in Scots' hands, \"'twas time for us to go\" thought\nthe Picts and Cymri of Langbank and Dumbuck.\n\nSadly they evacuate their old towers or cairns before the Scots who now\ncommand the Dumbuck ford from Dumbarton.  They cross to land on their\nstone causeway at low water.  They abandon the old canoe in the little\ndock where it was found by Mr. Bruce.  They throw down the venerable\nladder.  They leave behind only the canoe, the deer horns,\nstone-polishers, sharpened bones, the lower stone of a quern, and the now\nobsolete, or purely folk-loreish stone \"amulets,\" or \"pendants,\" and the\nfigurines, which to call \"idols\" is unscientific, while to call them\n\"totems\" is to display \"facetious and rejoicing ignorance.\"  Dr. Munro\nmerely quotes this foolish use of the term totem by others.\n\nThese old things the evicted Picts and Cymri abandoned, while they\ncarried with them their more valuable property, their Early Iron axes and\nknives, their treasured bits of red \"Samian ware,\" inherited from Roman\ntimes, their amber beads, and the rest of their bibelots, down to the\nminutest fragment of pottery.\n\nOr it may not have been so: the conquering Scots may have looted the\ncairns, and borne the Pictish cairn-dwellers into captivity.\n\nLooking at any broch, or hill fort, or crannog, the fancy dwells on the\nlast day of its occupation: the day when the canoe was left to subside\ninto the mud and decaying vegetable matter of the loch.  In changed\ntimes, in new conditions, the inhabitants move away to houses less damp,\nand better equipped with more modern appliances.  I see the little troop,\nor perhaps only two natives, cross the causeway, while the Minstrel sings\nin Pictish or Welsh a version of\n\n   \"The Auld Hoose, the Auld Hoose,\n   What though the rooms were sma',\n   Wi' six feet o' diameter,\n   And a rung gaun through the ha'!\"\n\nThe tears come to my eyes, as I think of the Last Day of Old Dumbuck,\nfor, take it as you will, there _was_ a last day of Dumbuck, as of windy\nIlios, and of \"Carthage left deserted of the sea.\"\n\nSo ends my little idyllic interlude, and, if I am wrong, blame Venerable\nBede!\n\n\n\n\nXI--MY THEORY OF PROVISIONAL DATE\n\n\nProvisionally, and for the sake of argument merely, may I suggest that\nthe occupancy of these sites may be dated by me, about 300-550 A.D.?  That\ndate is well within the Iron Age: iron had long been known and used in\nNorth Britain.  But to the non-archaeological reader, the terms Stone\nAge, Bronze Age, Iron Age, are apt to prove misleading.  The early Iron\nAge, like the Bronze Age, was familiar with the use of implements of\nstone.  In the Scottish crannogs, admirably described by Dr. Munro, in\nhis _Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings_, were found implements of flint, a\npolished stone axe-head, an iron knife at the same lowest level, finger\nrings of gold, a forged English coin of the sixth or seventh century\nA.D., well-equipped canoes (a common attendant of crannogs), the greater\npart of a stone inscribed with concentric circles, a cupped stone, and a\nlarge quartz crystal of the kind which Apaches in North America, and the\nEuahlayi tribe in New South Wales, use in crystal gazing.  In early ages,\nafter the metals had been worked, stone, bronze, and iron were still used\nas occasion served, just as the Australian black will now fashion an\nimplement in \"palaeolithic\" wise, with a few chips; now will polish a\nweapon in \"neolithic\" fashion; and, again, will chip a fragment of glass\nwith wonderful delicacy; or will put as good an edge as he can on a piece\nof hoop iron.\n\nI venture, then, merely for the sake of argument, to date the origin of\nthe Clyde sites in the dark years of unrecorded turmoil which preceded\nand followed the Roman withdrawal.  The least unpractical way of getting\nnearer to their purpose is the careful excavation of a structure of wood\nand stone near Eriska, where Prince Charles landed in 1745.  Dr. Munro\nhas seen and described this site, but is unable to explain it.  Certainly\nit cannot be a Corporation cairn.\n\n\n\n\nXII--THE DISPUTED OBJECTS\n\n\nWe now approach the disputed and very puzzling objects found in the three\nClyde sites.  My object is, not to demonstrate that they were actually\nfashioned in, say, 410-550 A.D., or that they were relics of an age far\nmore remote, but merely to re-state the argument of Dr. Joseph Anderson,\nKeeper of the Scottish National Museum, and of Sir Arthur Mitchell, both\nof them most widely experienced and sagacious archaeologists.  They play\nthe waiting game, and it may be said that they \"sit upon the fence\"; I am\nproud to occupy a railing in their company.  Dr. Anderson spoke at a\nmeeting of the Scots Society of Antiquaries, May 14, 1900, when Mr. Bruce\nread a paper on Dumbuck, and exhibited the finds.  \"With regard to the\nrelics, he said that there was nothing exceptional in the chronological\nhorizon of a portion of them from both sites (Dumbuck and Dunbuie), but\nas regards another portion, he could find no place for it in any\narchaeological series, as it had 'no recognisable affinity with any\nobjects found anywhere else.'\"\n\n\"For my part,\" said Dr. Anderson, (and he has not altered his mind,) \"I\ndo not consider it possible or necessary in the meantime that there\nshould be a final pronouncement on these questions.  In the absence of\ndecisive evidence, which time may supply, I prefer to suspend my\njudgment--merely placing the suspected objects (as they place themselves)\nin the list of things that must wait for further evidence, because they\ncontradict present experience.  It has often happened that new varieties\nof things have been regarded with suspicion on account of their lack of\ncorrespondence with things previously known, and that the lapse of time\nhas brought corroboration of their genuineness through fresh discoveries.\nIf time brings no such corroboration, they still remain in their proper\nclassification as things whose special character has not been confirmed\nby archaeological experience.\"\n\nSir Arthur Mitchell spoke in the same sense, advising suspension of\njudgment, and that we should await the results of fresh explorations both\nat Dumbuck and elsewhere. {61}  Dr. Murray said that the disputed finds\n\"are puzzling, but we need not condemn them because we do not understand\nthem.\"  Dr. Munro will not suspend _his_ judgment: the objects, he\ndeclares, are spurious.\n\n\n\n\nXIII--METHOD OF INQUIRY\n\n\nI remarked, early in this tract, that \"with due deference, and with\ndoubt, I think Dr. Munro's methods capable of modification.\"  I meant\nthat I prefer, unlike Dr. Munro in this case, to extend the\narchaeological gaze beyond the limits of things already known to occur in\nthe Scottish area which--by the way--must contain many relics still\nunknown.  I\n\n   \"Let Observation with extensive view\n   Survey mankind from China to Peru,\"\n\nto discover whether objects analogous to those under dispute occur\nanywhere among early races of the past or present.  This kind of wide\ncomparison is the method of Anthropology.  Thus Prof. Rhys and others\nfind so very archaic an institution as the reckoning of descent in the\nfemale line,--inheritance going through the Mother,--among the Picts of\nScotland, and they even find traces of totemism, an institution already\noutworn among several of the naked tribes of Australia, who reckon\ndescent in the male line.\n\nRaces do not, in fact, advance on a straight and unbroken highway of\nprogress.  You find that the Kurnai of Australia are more civilised, as\nregards the evolution of the modern Family, than were the Picts who built\ncrannogs and dug canoes, and cultivated the soil, and had domesticated\nanimals, and used iron, all of them things that the Kurnai never dreamed\nof doing.\n\nAs to traces of Totemism in Scotland and Ireland, I am not persuaded by\nProfessor Rhys that they occur, and are attested by Celtic legends about\nthe connection of men and kinships with animals, and by personal and\nkinship names derived from animals.  The question is very obscure. {63}\nBut as the topic of Totemism has been introduced, I may say that many of\nthe mysterious archaic markings on rocks, and decorations of implements,\nin other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design\nof the totem animal.  Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a\ntriple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design,\nto our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set\nof bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on.\n{64a}  Equivalent marks, such as spirals, and tracks of emu's feet, occur\non sacred stones found round the graves of Australian blacks on the\nDarling River.  They were associated with rites which the oldest blacks\ndecline to explain.  The markings are understood to be totemic.\nOccasionally they are linear, as in Ogam writing. {64b}\n\nAny one who is interested in the subject of the origin, in certain\nplaces, of the patterns, may turn to Mr. Haddon's _Evolution of Art_.\n{64c}  Mr. Haddon shows how the Portuguese pattern of horizontal\ntriangles is, in the art of the uncivilised natives of Brazil, meant to\nrepresent bats. {64d}  A cross, dotted, within a circle, is directly\nderived, through several stages, from a representation of an alligator.\n{64e}\n\nWe cannot say whether or not the same pattern, found at Dumbuck, in\nCentral Australia, and in tropical America, arose in the \"schematising\"\nof the same object in nature, in all three regions, or not.  Without\ndirect evidence, we cannot assign a meaning to the patterns.\n\n\n\n\nXIV--THE POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF THE MARKS AND OBJECTS\n\n\nMy private opinion as to the meaning of the archaic marks and the Clyde\nobjects which bear them, has, in part by my own fault, been misunderstood\nby Dr. Munro.  He bases an argument on the idea that I suppose the\ndisputed \"pendants\" to have had, in Clydesdale, precisely the same\nlegendary, customary, and magical significance as the stone churinga of\nthe Arunta tribe in Australia.  That is not my theory.  Dr. Munro quotes\nme, without indicating the source, (which, I learn, is my first letter on\nthe subject to the _Glasgow Herald_, Jan. 10th, 1899), as saying that the\nClyde objects \"are in absolutely startling agreement\" with the Arunta\n_churinga_. {65}\n\nDoubtless, before I saw the objects, I thus overstated my case, in a\nletter to a newspaper, in 1899.  But in my essay originally published in\nthe _Contemporary Review_, (March 1899,) and reprinted in my book, _Magic\nand Religion_, of 1901, {66} I stated my real opinion.  This is a\nmaturely considered account of my views as they were in 1899-1901, and,\nunlike old newspaper correspondence, is easily accessible to the student.\nIt is _not_ \"out of print.\"  I compared the Australian marks on small\nstones and on rock walls, and other \"fixtures in the landscape,\" with the\nmarkings on Scottish boulders, rock walls, cists, and so forth, and also\nwith the marks on the disputed objects.  I added \"the startling analogy\nbetween Australia and old Scottish markings _saute aux yeux_,\" and I\nspoke truth.  Down to the designs which represent footmarks, the analogy\nis \"startling,\" is of great interest, and was never before made the\nsubject of comment.\n\nI said that we could not know whether or not the markings, in Scotland\nand Australia, had the same meaning.\n\nAs to my opinion, then, namely that we cannot say what is the\nsignificance of an archaic pattern in Scotland, or elsewhere, though we\nmay know the meaning assigned to it in Central Australia, there can no\nlonger be any mistake.  I take the blame of having misled Dr. Munro by an\nunguarded expression in a letter to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries,\n{67} saying that, if the disputed objects were genuine, they implied the\nsurvival, on Clyde, \"of a singularly archaic set of ritual and magical\nideas,\" namely those peculiar to the Arunta and Kaitish tribes of Central\nAustralia.  But that was a slip of the pen, merely.\n\nThis being the case, I need not reply to arguments of Dr. Munro (pp. 248-\n250) against an hypothesis which no instructed person could entertain,\nbeginning with the assumption that from an unknown centre, some people\nwho held Arunta ideas migrated to Central Australia, and others to the\nClyde.  Nobody supposes that the use of identical or similar patterns,\nand of stones of superstitious purpose, implies community of race.  These\nthings may anywhere be independently evolved, and in different regions\nmay have quite different meanings, if any; while the use of \"charm\nstones\" or witch stones, is common among savages, and survives, in\nEngland and Scotland, to this day.  The reader will understand that I am\nmerely applying Mr. E. B. Tylor's method of the study of \"survivals in\nculture,\" which all anthropologists have used since the publication of\nMr. Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, thirty-five years ago.\n\n\n\n\nXV--QUESTION OF METHOD CONTINUED\n\n\nWhat is admitted to be true of survivals in the Family among the Picts\nmay also be true as to other survivals in art, superstition, and so\nforth.  I would, therefore, compare the disputed Clyde objects with\nothers analogous to them, of known or unknown purpose, wheresoever they\nmay be found.  I am encouraged in this course by observing that it is\npursued, for example, by the eminent French archaeologist, Monsieur\nCartailhac, in his book _Les Ages Prehistoriques de France et d'Espagne_.\nHe does not hesitate, as we shall see, to compare peculiar objects found\nin France or Spain, with analogous objects of doubtful purpose, found in\nAmerica or the Antilles.  M. Cartailhac writes that, to find anything\nresembling certain Portuguese \"thin plaques of slate in the form of a\ncrook, or crozier,\" he \"sought through all ethnographic material, ancient\nand modern.\"  He did find the parallels to his Portuguese objects, one\nfrom Gaudeloup, the other either French, or from the Antilles. {69}\n\nSir John Evans, again, compares British with Australian objects; in fact\nthe practice is recognised.  I therefore intend to make use of this\ncomparative method.  On the other hand, Dr. Munro denies that any of my\nanalogies drawn from remote regions are analogous, and it will be\nnecessary to try to prove that they are,--that my Australian, American,\nPortuguese, and other objects are of the same kind, apparently, as some\nof the disputed relics of the Clyde.\n\nIf I succeed, one point will be made probable.  Either the Clyde objects\nare old, or the modern maker knew much more of archaeology than many of\nhis critics and used his knowledge to direct his manufacture of spurious\nthings; or he kept coinciding _accidentally_ with genuine relics of which\nhe knew nothing.\n\n\n\n\nXVI--MAGIC\n\n\nAgain, I must push my method beyond that of Dr. Munro, by considering the\nsubject of Magic, in relation to perforated and other stones, whether\ninscribed with designs, or uninscribed.  Among the disputed objects are\nmany such stones, and it is legitimate for me to prove, not only that\nthey occur in many sites of ancient life, but that their magical uses are\nstill recognised, or were very recently recognised in the British Folk-\nlore of to-day.\n\nA superstition which has certainly endured to the nineteenth century may\nobviously have existed among the Picts, or whoever they were, of the\ncrannog and broch period on Clyde.  The only _a priori_ objection is the\nabsence of such objects among finds made on British soil, but our\ndiscoveries cannot be exhaustive: time may reveal other examples, and\nalready we have a few examples, apart from the objects in dispute.\n\n\n\n\nXVII--DISPUTED OBJECTS CLASSIFIED\n\n\nDr. Munro classifies the disputed objects as _Weapons_, _Implements_,\n\"_Amulets_\" _or Pendants_, _Cup-and-Ring Stones_, \"_Human Figurines or\nIdols_.\"\n\nFor reasons of convenience, and because what I heard about group 3, the\n\"amulets or pendants\" first led me into this discussion, I shall here\nfirst examine them.  Dr. Munro reproduces some of them in one plate (xv.\np. 228).  He does not say by what process they are reproduced; merely\nnaming them . . . \"objects of slate and stone from Dumbuck.\"\n\nDr. Munro describes the \"amulets\" or \"pendants\" thus:\n\n   \"The largest group of objects (plate XV.) consists of the so-called\n   amulets or pendants of stone, shale, and shell, some fifteen to twenty\n   specimens of which have been preserved and recorded as having been\n   found on the different stations, viz., three from Dunbuie (exclusive\n   of a few perforated oyster shells), eleven from Dumbuck, and one from\n   Langbank.  Their ornamentation is chiefly of the cup-and-ring order,\n   only a few having patterns composed of straight lines.  Some of them\n   are so large as to be unfit to be used as amulets or pendants, such,\n   for example, as that represented by no. 14, which is 9 inches long,\n   3.5 inches broad, and 0.5 inch thick.  The ornamentation consists of a\n   strongly incised line running downwards from the perforation with\n   small branch lines directed alternately right and left.  Any human\n   being, who would wear this object, either as an ornament or religious\n   emblem, would be endowed with the most archaic ideas of decorative art\n   known in the history of human civilisation.  Yet we can have no doubt\n   that the individual who manufactured it, if he were an inhabitant of\n   any of the Clyde sites, was at the same time living in a period not\n   devoid of culture, and was in possession of excellent cutting\n   implements, most likely of iron, with which he manipulated wood, deer-\n   horn, and other substances.  These objects are nearly all perforated,\n   as if intended for suspension, but sometimes, in addition to this,\n   there is a large central hole around which there is always an\n   ornamentation, generally consisting of incised circles or semicircles,\n   with divergent lines leading into small hollow points, the so-called\n   cup-marks.\"\n\nI shall return to the theory that the stones were \"ornaments\"; meanwhile\nI proceed to the consideration of \"cup-marks\" on stones, large or small.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII--CUP MARKS IN CRANNOGS\n\n\nAs to cup marks, or _cupules_, little basins styled also _ecuelles_, now\nisolated, now grouped, now separate, now joined by hollowed lines, they\nare familiar on rocks, funeral cists, and so forth in Asia, Europe, and\nNorth America (and Australia), as M. Cartailhac remarks in reviewing Dr.\nMagni's work on Cupped Rocks near Como. {73a}  \"Their meaning escapes\nus,\" says M. Cartailhac.\n\nThese cups, or cupules, or _ecuelles_ occur, not only at Dumbuck, but in\nassociation with a Scottish crannog of the Iron age, admirably described\nby Dr. Munro himself. {73b}  He found a polished celt, {73c} and a cupped\nstone, and he found a fragmentary block of red sandstone, about a foot in\nlength, inscribed with concentric circles, surrounding a cup.  The\nremainder of the stone, with the smaller part of the design, was not\nfound.\n\nHere, then, we have these archaic patterns and marks on isolated stones,\none of them about 13 inches long, in a genuine Scottish crannog, of the\ngenuine Iron age, while flint celts also occur, and objects of bronze.\nTherefore cup markings, and other archaic markings are not unknown or\nsuspicious things in a genuine pile structure in Scotland.  Why, then,\nsuspect them at Dumbuck?  At Dumbuck the cups occur on a triangular block\nof sandstone, 14.5 inches long and 4 inches thick.  Another cupped block\nis of 21.5 inches by 16.5. {74}\n\nNo forger brought these cupped stones in his waistcoat pocket.\n\nWe have thus made good the point that an isolated cupped stone, and an\nisolated stone inscribed with concentric circles round a cup, do occur in\na crannog containing objects of the stone, bronze, and iron ages.  The\nmeaning, if any, of these inscribed stones, in the Lochlee crannog, is\nunknown.  Many of the disputed objects vary from them in size, while\npresenting examples of archaic patterns.  Are they to be rejected because\nthey vary in size?\n\nWe see that the making of this class of decorative patterns, whether they\noriginally had a recognised meaning; or whether, beginning as mere\ndecorations, perhaps \"schematistic\" designs of real objects, they later\nhad an arbitrary symbolic sense imposed upon them, is familiar to\nAustralians of to-day, who use, indifferently, stone implements of the\nneolithic or of the palaeolithic type.  We also know that \"in a remote\ncorner of tropical America,\" the rocks are inscribed with patterns\n\"typically identical with those engraved in the British rocks.\" {75}\nThese markings are in the country of the Chiriquis, an extinct\ngold-working neolithic people, very considerable artists, especially in\nthe making of painted ceramics.  The Picts and Scots have left nothing at\nall approaching to their pottery work.\n\nThese identical patterns, therefore, have been independently evolved in\nplaces most remote in space and in stage of civilisation, while in\nGalloway, as I shall show, I have seen some of them scrawled in chalk on\nthe flag stones in front of cottage doors.  The identity of many Scottish\nand Australian patterns is undenied, while I disclaim the opinion that,\nin each region, they had the same significance.\n\nI have now established the coincidence between the markings of rocks in\nAustralia, in tropical America, and in Scotland.  I have shown that such\nmarkings occur, in Scotland, associated with remains, in a crannog, of\nthe Age of Iron.  They also occur on stones, large (cupped) and small, in\nDumbuck.  My next business is, if I can, to establish, what Dr. Munro\ndenies, a parallelism between these disputed Clyde stones, and the larger\nor smaller inscribed stones of the Arunta and Kaitish, in Australia, and\nother small stones, decorated or plain, found in many ancient European\nsites.  Their meaning we know not, but probably they were either reckoned\nornamental, or magical, or both.\n\n\n\n\nXIX--PARALLELISM BETWEEN THE DISPUTED OBJECTS AND OTHER OBJECTS ELSEWHERE\n\n\nOn Clyde (if the disputed things be genuine) we find decorated plaques or\nslabs of soft stone, of very various dimensions and shapes.  In Australia\nsome of these objects are round, many oval, others elongated, others thin\nand pointed, like a pencil; others oblong--while on Clyde, some are\nround, one is coffin-shaped, others are palette-shaped, others are pear-\nshaped (the oval tapering to one extremity), one is triangular, one is\noblong. {77}  In Australia, as on Clyde, the stones bear some of the\narchaic markings common on the rock faces both in Scotland and in Central\nAustralia: on large rocks they are _painted_, in Australia, in Scotland\nthey are _incised_.  I maintain that there is a singularly strong analogy\nbetween the two sets of circumstances, Scottish and Australian; large\nrocks inscribed with archaic designs; smaller stones inscribed with some\nof these designs.  Is it not so?  Dr. Munro, on the other hand, asserts\nthat there is no such parallelism.\n\nBut I must point out that there is, to some extent, an admitted\nparallelism.  \"The familiar designs which served as models to the Clyde\nartists\"--\"plain cups and rings, with or without gutter channels,\nspirals, circles, concentric circles, semicircles, horseshoe and harp-\nshaped figures, etc.,\" occur, or a selection of them occurs, both on the\ndisputed objects, and on the rocks of the hills.  So Dr. Munro truly says\n(p. 260).\n\nThe same marks, plain cups, cups and rings, spirals, concentric circles,\nhorseshoes, medial lines with short slanting lines proceeding from them,\nlike the branches on a larch, or the spine of a fish, occur on the rocks\nof the Arunta hills, and also on plaques of stone cherished and called\nchuringa (\"sacred\") by the Arunta. {78}  Here is what I call\n\"parallelism.\"\n\nDr. Munro denies this parallelism.\n\nThere are, indeed, other parallelisms with markings other than those of\nthe rocks at Auchentorlie which Dr. Munro regards as the sources of the\nfaker's inspiration.  Thus, on objects from Dumbuck (Munro, plate XV.\nfigs, 11 and 12), there are two \"signs\": one is a straight line,\nhorizontal, with three shorter lines under it at right angles, the other\na line with four lines under it.  These signs \"are very frequent in\nTrojan antiquities,\" and on almost all the \"hut urns\" found \"below the\nlava at Marino, near Albano, or on ancient tombs near Corneto.\"  Whatever\nthey mean, (and Prof. Sayce finds the former of the two \"signs\" \"as a\nHittite hieroglyph,\") I do not know them at Auchentorlie.  After \"a\nscamper among the surrounding hills,\" the faker may have passed an\nevening with Dr. Schliemann's _Troja_ (1884, pp. 126, 127) and may have\ntaken a hint from the passages which have just been cited.  Or he may\nhave cribbed the idea of these archaic markings from Don Manuel de\nGongora y Martinez, his _Antiguedades Pre-historicas de Andalucia_\n(Madrid, 1868, p. 65, figures 70, 71).  In these Spanish examples the\nmarks are, clearly, \"schematised\" or rudimentary designs of animals, in\norigin.  Our faker is a man of reading.  But, _enfin_, the world is full\nof just such markings, which may have had one meaning here, another\nthere, or may have been purely decorative.  \"Race\" has nothing to do with\nthe markings.  They are \"universally human,\" though, in some cases, they\nmay have been transmitted by one to another people.\n\n{ Fig. 5: p80a.jpg}\n\nThe reader must decide as to whether I have proved my parallelisms,\ndenied by Dr. Munro, between the Clyde, Australian, and other markings,\nwhether on rocks or on smaller stones. {80a}\n\n{ Fig. 6: p80b.jpg}\n\nIt suffices me to have tried to prove the parallelism between Australian\nand Clyde things, and to record Dr. Munro's denial thereof--\"I\nunhesitatingly maintain that there is no parallelism whatever between the\ntwo sets of objects.\" {80b}\n\n{ Fig. 7: p80c.jpg}\n\n\n\n\nXX--UNMARKED CHARM STONES\n\n\nIt must be kept in mind that churinga, \"witch stones,\" \"charm stones,\" or\nwhatever the smaller stones may be styled, are not necessarily marked\nwith any pattern.  In Australia, in Portugal, in Russia, in France, in\nNorth America, in Scotland, as we shall see, such stones may be unmarked,\nmay bear no inscription or pattern. {81}  These are plain magic stones,\nsuch as survive in English peasant superstition.\n\nIn Dr. Munro's _Ancient Lake Dwellings of Europe_, plain stone discs,\nperforated, do occur, but rarely, and there are few examples of pendants\nwith cupped marks.  Of these two, as being cupped pendants, might look\nlike analogues of the disputed Clyde stones, but Dr. Munro, owing to the\nsubsequent exposure of the \"Horn Age\" forgeries, now has \"a strong\nsuspicion that he was taken in\" by the things. {82a}\n\nTo return to Scottish stones.\n\nIn Mr. Graham Callander's essay on perforated stones, {82b} he publishes\nan uninscribed triangular stone, with a perforation, apparently for\nsuspension.  This is one of several such Scottish stones, and though we\ncannot prove it, may have had a superstitious purpose.  Happily Sir\nWalter Scott discovered and describes the magical use to which this kind\nof charm stone was put in 1814.  When a person was unwell, in the Orkney\nIsles, the people, like many savages, supposed that a wizard had stolen\nhis heart.  \"The parties' friends resort to a cunning man or woman, who\nhangs about the [patient's] neck a triangular stone in the shape of a\nheart.\" {82c}  This is a thoroughly well-known savage superstition, the\nstealing of the heart, or vital spirit, and its restoration by magic.\n\nThis use of triangular or heart-shaped perforated stones was not\ninconsistent with the civilisation of the nineteenth century, and, of\ncourse, was not inconsistent with the civilisation of the Picts.  A stone\nmay have magical purpose, though it bears no markings.  Meanwhile most\nchuringa, and many of the disputed objects, have archaic markings, which\nalso occur on rock faces.\n\n\n\n\nXXI--QUALITY OF ART ON THE STONES\n\n\nDr. Munro next reproduces two _wooden_ churinga (_churinga irula_), as\nbeing very unlike the Clydesdale objects _in stone_ {84a} (figures 5, 6).\nThey are: but I was speaking of Australian _churinga nanja_, of _stone_.\nA stone churinga {84b} presented, I think, by Mr. Spencer through me to\nthe Scottish Society of Antiquaries (also reproduced by Dr. Munro), is a\nmuch better piece of work, as I saw when it reached me, than most of the\nClyde things.  \"The Clyde amulets are,\" says Dr. Munro, \"neither strictly\noval,\" (_nor are very many Australian samples_,) \"nor well finished, nor\nsymmetrical, being generally water-worn fragments of shale or clay slate.\n. . .\"  They thus resemble ancient Red Indian pendants.\n\nAs to the art of the patterns, the Australians have a considerable\nartistic gift; as Grosse remarks, {85a} while either the Clyde folk had\nless, or the modern artists had _not_ \"some practical artistic skill.\"\nBut Dr. Munro has said that any one with \"some practical artistic skill\"\ncould whittle the Clyde objects. {85b}  He also thinks that in one case\nthey \"disclose the hand of one not altogether ignorant of art\" (p. 231).\n\nLet me put a crucial question.  Are the archaic markings on the disputed\nobjects better, or worse, or much on a level with the general run of such\nundisputably ancient markings on large rocks, cists, and cairns in\nScotland?  I think the art in both cases is on the same low level.  When\nthe art on the disputed objects is more formal and precise, as on some\nshivered stones at Dunbuie, \"the stiffness of the lines and figures\nreminds one more of rule and compass than of the free-hand work of\nprehistoric artists.\" {85c}  The modern faker sometimes drew his marks\n\"free-hand,\" and carelessly; sometimes his regularities suggest line and\ncompass.\n\nNow, as to the use of compasses, a small pair were found with Late Celtic\nremains, at Lough Crew, and plaques of bone decorated by aid of such\ncompasses, were also found, {85d} in a cairn of a set adorned with the\narchaic markings, cup and ring, concentric circles, medial lines with\nshorter lines sloping from them on either side, and a design\nrepresenting, apparently, an early mono-cycle!\n\nFor all that I know, a dweller in Dunbuie might have compasses, like the\nLough Crew cairn artist.\n\nIf I have established the parallelism between Arunta churinga nanja and\nthe disputed Clyde \"pendants,\" which Dr. Munro denies, we are reduced to\none of two theories.  Either the Picts of Clyde, or whoever they were,\nrepeated on stones, usually small, some of the patterns on the\nneighbouring rocks; or the modern faker, for unknown reasons, repeated\nthese and other archaic patterns on smaller stones.  His motive is\ninscrutable: the Australian parallels were unknown to European\nscience,--but he may have used European analogues.  On the other hand,\nwhile Dr. Munro admits that the early Clyde people might have repeated\nthe rock decorations \"on small objects of slate and shale,\" he says that\nthe objects \"would have been, even then, as much out of place as\nsurviving remains of the earlier Scottish civilisation as they are at the\npresent day.\" {86}\n\nHow can we assert that magic stones, or any such stone objects,\nperforated or not, were necessarily incongruous with \"the earlier\nScottish civilisation?\"  No civilisation, old or new, is incapable of\npossessing such stones; even Scotland, as I shall show, can boast two or\nthree samples, such as the stone of the Keiss broch, a perfect circle,\nengraved with what looks like an attempt at a Runic inscription; and\nanother in a kind of cursive characters.\n\n\n\n\nXXII--SURVIVAL OF MAGIC OF STONES\n\n\nIf \"incongruous with the earlier Scottish civilisation\" the use of \"charm\nstones\" is not incongruous with the British civilisation of the\nnineteenth century.\n\nIn the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_ (Scot.) (1902-1903, p.\n166 _et seq._) Mr. Graham Callander, already cited, devotes a very\ncareful essay to such perforated stones, circular or triangular, or\notherwise shaped, found in the Garioch.  They are of slate, or \"heather\nstone,\" and of various shapes and sizes.  Their original purpose is\nunknown.  The perforation, or cup not perforated, is sometimes in the\ncentre, in a few cases in \"near the end.\"  Mr. Graham Callander heard of\na recent old lady in Roxburghshire, who kept one of these stones, of\nirregularly circular shape, behind the door for luck. {88}  \"It was\nalways spoken of as a charm,\" though its ancient maker may have intended\nit for some prosaic practical use.\n\n{ Fig. 8: p88.jpg}\n\nI take the next example that comes to hand.\n\n\"Thin flat oolite stones, having a natural perforation, are found in\nabundance on the Yorkshire coast.  They are termed \"witch stones,\" and\nare tied to door keys, or suspended by a string behind the cottage door,\n\"to keep witches out.\" {89}  \"A thin flat perforated witch stone,\"\nanswers to an uninscribed Arunta churinga; \"a magic thing,\" and its use\nsurvives in Britain, as in Yorkshire and Roxburghshire.  We know no limit\nto the persistence of survival of superstitious things, such as magic\nstones.  This is the familiar lesson of Anthropology and of Folk Lore,\nand few will now deny the truth of the lesson.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII--MODERN SURVIVAL OF MAGICAL WOOD CHURINGA\n\n\nI take another example of modern survival in magic.  Dr. Munro, perhaps,\nwould think wooden churinga, used for magical ends, \"incongruous with the\nearlier Scottish civilisation.\"  But such objects have not proved to be\nincongruous with the Scottish civilisation of the nineteenth century.\n\nThe term _churinga_, \"sacred,\" is used by the Arunta to denote not only\nthe stone churinga nanja, a local peculiarity of the Arunta and Kaitish,\nbut also the decorated and widely diffused elongated wooden slats called\n\"Bull Roarers\" by the English.  These are swung at the end of a string,\nand produce a whirring roar, supposed to be the voice of a supernormal\nbeing, all over Australia and elsewhere.\n\nI am speaking of _survivals_, and these wooden churinga, at least,\n_survive_ in Scotland, and, in Aberdeenshire they are, or were lately\ncalled \"thunner spells\" or \"thunder bolts.\"  \"It was believed that the\nuse of this instrument during a thunderstorm saved one from being struck\nby the thunner bolt.\"  In North and South America the bull roarer, on the\nother hand, is used, not to avert, but magically to produce thunder and\nlightning. {91}  Among the Kaitish thunder is caused by the churinga of\ntheir \"sky dweller,\" Atnatu.\n\nWherever the toy is used for a superstitious purpose, it is, so far,\n_churinga_, and, so far, modern Aberdeenshire had the same _churinga\nirula_ as the Arunta.  The object was familiar to palaeolithic man.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV--CONCLUSION OF ARGUMENT FROM SURVIVALS IN MAGIC\n\n\nI have made it perfectly certain that magic stones, \"witch stones,\"\n\"charm stones,\" and that _churinga irula_, wooden magical slats of wood,\nexist in Australia and other savage regions, and survive, as magical,\ninto modern British life.  The point is beyond doubt, and it is beyond\ndoubt that, in many regions, the stones, and the slats of wood, may be\ninscribed with archaic markings, or may be uninscribed.  This will be\nproved more fully later.  Thus Pictish, like modern British civilisation,\nmay assuredly have been familiar with charm stones.  There is no _a\npriori_ objection as to the possibility.\n\nWhy should Pictish stones _not_ be inscribed with archaic patterns\nfamiliar to the dwellers among inscribed rocks, perhaps themselves the\ninscribers of the rocks?  Manifestly there is no _a priori_\nimprobability.  I have seen the archaic patterns of concentric circles\nand fish spines, (or whatever we call the medial line with slanting side\nlines,) neatly designed in white on the flag stones in front of cottage\ndoors in Galloway.  The cottagers dwelt near the rocks with similar\npatterns on the estate of Monreith, but are not likely to have copied\nthem; the patterns, I presume, were mere survivals in tradition.\n\nThe Picts, or whoever they were, might assuredly use charm stones, and\nthe only objection to the idea that they might engrave archaic patterns\non them is the absence of record of similarly inscribed small stones in\nBritain.  The custom of using magic stones was not at all incongruous\nwith the early Pictish civilisation, which retained a form of the Family\nnow long outworn by the civilisation of the Arunta.  The sole objection\nis that _a silentio_, silence of archaeological records as to _inscribed_\nsmall stones.  That is not a closer of discussion, nor is the silence\nabsolute, as I shall show.\n\nMoreover, the appearance of an unique and previously unheard-of set of\ninscribed stones, in a site of the usual broch and crannog period, is not\ninvariably ascribed to forgery, even by the most orthodox archaeologists.\nThus Sir Francis Terry found unheard-of things, not to mention \"a number\nof thin flat circular discs of various sizes\" in his Caithness brochs.  In\nWester broch \"the most remarkable things found\" were three egg-shaped\nquartzite pearls \"having their surface painted with spots in a blackish\nor blackish-brown pigment.\"  He also found a flattish circular disc of\nsandstone, inscribed with a duck or other water-fowl, while on one side\nwas an attempt, apparently, to write runes, on the other an inscription\nin unknown cursive characters.  There was a boulder of sandstone with\nnine cup marks, and there were more painted pebbles, the ornaments now\nresembling ordinary cup marks, now taking the shape of a cross, and now\nof lines and other patterns, one of which, on an Arunta rock, is of\nunknown meaning, among many of known totemic significance.\n\nDr. Joseph Anderson compares these to \"similar pebbles painted with a red\npigment\" which M. Piette found in the cavern of Mas d'Azil, of which the\nrelics are, in part at least, palaeolithic, or \"mesolithic,\" and of\ndateless antiquity.  In _L'Anthropologie_ (Nov. 1894), Mr. Arthur Bernard\nCook suggests that the pebbles of Mas d'Azil may correspond to the stone\nchuringa nanja of the Arunta; a few of which appear to be painted, not\nincised.  I argued, on the contrary, that things of similar appearance,\nat Mas d'Azil: in Central Australia: and in Caithness, need not have had\nthe same meaning and purpose. {95a}\n\nIt is only certain that the pebbles of the Caithness brochs are as\nabsolutely unfamiliar as the inscribed stones of Dumbuck.  But nobody\nsays that the Caithness painted pebbles are forgeries or modern\nfabrications.  Sauce for the Clyde goose is not sauce for the Caithness\ngander. {95b}\n\nThe use of painted pebbles and of inscribed stones, may have been merely\n_local_.\n\nIn Australia the stone churinga are now, since 1904, known to be _local_,\nconfined to the Arunta \"nation,\" and the Kaitish, with very few sporadic\nexceptions in adjacent tribes. {95c}\n\nThe purely local range of the inscribed stones in Central Australia,\nmakes one more anxious for further local research in the Clyde district\nand south-west coast.\n\n\n\n\nXXV--MY MISADVENTURE WITH THE CHARM STONE\n\n\nAs Dr. Munro introduces the subject, I may draw another example of the\nsurvival of charm stones, from an amusing misadventure of my own.  I was\nonce entrusted with a charm stone used in the nineteenth century for the\nhealing of cattle in the Highlands.  An acquaintance of mine, a Mac--- by\nthe mother's side, inherited this heirloom with the curious box patched\nwith wicker-work, which was its Ark.  It was exactly of the shape of a\n\"stone churinga of the Arunta tribe,\" later reproduced by Messrs. Spencer\nand Gillen. {96}  On the surfaces of the ends were faintly traced\nconcentric rings, that well-known pattern.  I wrote in the _Glasgow\nHerald_ that, \"_if_ a Neolithic amulet, as it appears to be, it _may_\nsupply the missing link in my argument,\" as being not only a magic stone\n(which it certainly was), but a magic stone with archaic markings. {97a}\nAt the British Museum I presently learned the real nature of the object,\nto my rueful amusement.  It had been the stone pivot of an old farm-gate,\nand, in turning on the upper and nether stones, had acquired the\nconcentric circular marks.  Not understanding what the thing was, the\nHighland maternal ancestors of my friend had for generations used it in\nthe magical healing of cattle, a very pretty case of \"survival.\"\n\n{ Figs. 9, 10: p96a.jpg}\n\nWriting on October 19th, I explained the facts in a letter to the\n_Glasgow Herald_.  A pseudonymous person then averred, in the same\njournal, that I had \"recently told its readers that I had found the\nmissing link in the chain that was to bind together the magic stones of\nthe Arunta and the discs, images, and 'blue points' of the Clyde crannog\nman.\"\n\n{ Fig. 11: p96b.jpg}\n\nI never told any mortal that I had \"found the missing link!\"  I said that\n\"_if_\" the stone be Neolithic, it \"_may_\" be the missing link in my\nargument.  Dr. Munro prints the pseudonymous letter with approval, but\ndoes not correct the inaccurate statement of the writer. {97b}  Dr.\nMunro, I need not say, argues with as much candour as courtesy, and the\nomission of the necessary correction is an oversight.\n\n{ Figs. 12, 13: p96c.jpg}\n\nHowever, here was a survival of the use of charm stones, and I think\nthat, had the stone been uninscribed (as it was accidentally inscribed\nwith concentric circles by turning in its stone sockets), my friend's\nHighland ancestors might have been less apt to think it a fairy thing,\nand use it in cattle healing.\n\nI trust that I have now established my parallelisms.  The archaic\npatterns of countries now civilised and of savage countries are assuredly\nparallel.  The use of charm stones in civilisation and savagery is\nassuredly parallel.  The application to these stones of the archaic\npatterns, by a rude race in Clydesdale, familiar with the patterns on\nrocks in the district, has in it nothing _a priori_ improbable.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI--EUROPEAN PARALLELS TO THE DISPUTED OBJECTS\n\n\nI am not so sure as Dr. Munro is that we have not found small perforated\nstones, sometimes inscribed with archaic patterns, sometimes plain, even\nin Scotland; I shall later mention other places.  For the present I leave\naside the small stone, inscribed with concentric horse-shoes, and found\nin a hill-fort near Tarbert (Kintyre), which a friend already spoken of\nsaw, and of which he drew for me a sketch from memory.  In country houses\nany intrinsically valueless object of this kind is apt to fall out of\nsight and be lost beyond recovery.\n\nSir John Evans, however, in his work on _Ancient Stone Implements_, p.\n463 (1897), writes: \"A pendant, consisting of a flat pear-shaped piece of\nshale, 2.5 inches long, and 2 inches broad, and perforated at the narrow\nend, was found along with querns, stones with concentric circles, and cup-\nshaped indentations worked in them; stone balls, spindle whorls, and an\niron axe-head, in excavating an underground chamber at the Tappock,\nTorwood, Stirlingshire.  One face of this pendant was covered with\nscratches in a vandyked pattern.  Though of smaller size this seems to\nbear some analogy with the flat amulets of schist of which several have\nbeen discovered in Portugal, with one face ornamented in much the same\nmanner.\"\n\nFor these examples Sir John Evans refers to the _Transactions of the\nEthnological Society_. {100a}\n\nIf by \"a vandyked pattern,\" Sir John means, as I suppose, a pattern of\ntriangles in horizontal lines (such as the Portuguese patterns on stone\nplaques), then the elements of this form of decoration appear to have\nbeen not unfamiliar to the designers of \"cups and rings.\"  On the cover\nof a stone cist at Carnwath we see inscribed concentric rings, and two\nlarge equilateral triangles, each containing three contingent triangles,\nround a square space, uninscribed. {100b}  The photograph of the Tappock\nstone (figs. 9, 10), shows that the marks are not of a regular vandyked\npattern, but are rather scribbles, like those on a Portuguese perforated\nstone, given by Vasconcellos, and on a Canadian stone pendant, published\nby Mr. David Boyle (figs. 12, 13).\n\nSir John Evans does not reject the pear-shaped object of shale, \"a\npendant,\" found in a Scottish site, and associated with querns, and an\niron axe, and cup and ring stones.  Sir John sees no harm in the\n\"pendant,\" but Dr. Munro rejects a \"pear-shaped\" claystone \"pendant\"\ndecorated with \"cup-shaped indentations,\" found at Dunbuie. {101}  It has\na perforation near each end, as is common in North American objects of\nsimilar nature (see fig. 11).\n\nWhy should the schist pendant of the Tappock chamber be all right, if the\nclaystone pendant of Dunbuie be all wrong?  One of them seems to me to\nhave as good a claim to our respectful consideration as the other, and,\nlike Sir John Evans, I shall now turn to Portugal in search of similar\nobjects of undisputed authenticity.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII--PORTUGUESE AND OTHER STONE PENDANTS\n\n\nM. Cartailhac, the very eminent French archaeologist, found not in\nPortugal, but in the Cevennes, \"plaques of slate, sometimes pierced with\na hole for suspension, usually smaller than those of the Casa da Moura,\nnot ornamented, _yet certainly analogous with these_.\" {102a}  These are\nalso analogous with \"engraved plaques of schist found in prehistoric\nsites of the Rio Negro,\" \"some resembling, others identical with those\nshewn at Lisbon by Carlos Ribeiro.\"  But the Rio Negro objects appear\ndoubtful. {102b}\n\nPortugal has many such plaques, some adorned with designs, and some\nplain. {102c}  The late Don Estacio da Veiga devotes a chapter to them,\nas if they were things peculiar to Portugal, in Europe. {103a}  When they\nare decorated the ornament is usually linear; in two cases {103b} lines\nincised lead to \"cups.\"  One plaque is certainly meant to represent the\nhuman form.  M. Cartailhac holds that all the plaques with a \"vandyked\"\npattern in triangles, without faces, \"are, none the less, _des\nrepresentations stylisees de silhouette humaine_.\" {103c}\n\nIllustrations give an idea of them (figs. 14, 15, 16); they are more\nelaborate than the perforated inscribed plaques of shale or schist from\nDumbuck.  Two perforated stone plaques from Volosova, figured by Dr.\nMunro (pp. 78, 79), fall into line with other inscribed plaques from\nPortugal.  Of these Russian objects referred to by Dr. Munro, one is (his\nfig. 25) a roughly pear-shaped thing in flint, perforated at the thin\nend; the other is a formless stone plaque, inscribed with a cross, three\ncircles, not concentric, and other now meaningless scratches.  It is not\nperforated.  Dr. Munro does not dispute the genuine character of many\nstrange figurines in flint, from Volosova, though the redoubtable M. de\nMortillet denounced them as forgeries; they had the misfortune to\ncorroborate other Italian finds against which M. de Mortillet had a\ngrudge.  But Dr. Munro thinks that the two plaques of Volosova may have\nbeen made for sale by knavish boys.  In that case the boys fortuitously\ncoincided, in their fake, with similar plaques, of undoubted antiquity,\nand, in some prehistoric Egyptian stones, occasionally inscribed with\nmere wayward scratches.\n\nFor these reasons I think the Volosova plaques as genuine as any other\nobjects from that site, and corroborative, so far, of similar things from\nClyde.\n\n{ Figs. 14, 15: p104.jpg}\n\nTo return to Portugal, M. Cartailhac recognises that the _plain_ plaques\nof slate from sites in the Cevennes \"are certainly analogous\" with the\nplaques from the Casa da Moura, even when these are elaborately\nornamented with vandyked and other patterns.  I find one published case\nof a Portuguese plaque with cups and ducts, as at Dumbuck (fig. 16).\nAnother example is in _Antiguedades Prehistoricas de Andalucia_, p. 109.\n{104}  However, Dr. Munro leaves the Cevennes Andalusian, and Portuguese\nplaques out of his argument.\n\nM. Cartailhac, then, found inscribed and perforated slate tablets \"very\ncommon in Portugues neolithic sepulchres.\"  The perforated holes showed\nsigns of long wear from attachment to something or somebody.  One, from\nNew Jersey, with two holes, exactly as in the Dunbuie example, was much\nakin in ornament to the Portuguese plaques.  One, of slate, was plain, as\nplain as \"a bit of gas coal with a round hole bored through it,\" recorded\nby Dr. Munro from Ashgrove Loch crannog.  A perforated shale, or slate,\nor schist or gas coal plaque, as at Ashgrove Loch, ornamented or plain,\nis certainly like another shale schist or slate plaque, plain or\ninscribed.  We have shown that these occur in France, Portugal, Russia,\nAmerica, and Scotland, not to speak of Central Australia.\n\nMy suggestion is that, if the Clyde objects are forged, the forger knew a\ngood deal of archaeology--knew that perforated inscribed plaques of soft\nmineral occurred in many countries--but he did not slavishly imitate the\npatterns.\n\nBy a pleasant coincidence, at the moment of writing, comes to me the\n_Annual Archaeological Report_, 1904, of the Canadian Bureau of\nEducation, kindly sent by Mr. David Boyle.  He remarks, as to stone\npendants found in Canadian soil, \"The forms of what we call pendants\nvaried greatly, and were probably made to adapt themselves to _the\nnatural shapes of water-worn stones_. . . .\"  This is exactly what Dr.\nMunro says about the small stone objects from the three Clyde stations.\n\"The pendants, amulets, and idols _appear to have been water-worn pieces\nof shale or slate_, before they were perforated, decorated, and polished\"\n(Munro, p. 254).  The forger may have been guided by the ancient Canadian\npendants; that man knows everything!\n\nMr. Boyle goes on, speaking of the superstitious still surviving instinct\nof treasuring such stones, \"For some unknown reason, many of us exhibit a\ndesire to pick up pebbles so marked, and examples of the kind are often\ncarried as pocket pieces,\" obviously \"for luck.\"  He gives one case of\nsuch a stone being worn for fifty years as a \"watch pendant.\"  Perforated\nstones have always had a \"fetishness\" attached to them, adds Mr. Boyle.\nHe then publishes several figures of such stones.  Two of these, with\narchaic markings like many in Portugal, and one with an undisputed\nanalogue from a Scottish site, are reproduced (figs. 12, 13).\n\nIt is vain to tell us that the uses of such fetishistic stones are out of\nharmony with any civilisation.  The civilisation of the dwellers in the\nClyde sites was not so highly advanced as to reject a superstition which\nstill survives.  Nor is there any reason why these people should not have\nscratched archaic markings on the pebbles as they certainly cut them on\nstones in a Scottish crannog of the Iron age.\n\nDr. Munro agrees with me that rude scribings on shale or slate are found,\nof a post-Christian date, at St. Blane's, in Bute. {107}  The art, if art\nit can be called, is totally different, of course, from the archaic types\nof decoration, but all the things have _this_ in common, that they are\nrudely incised on shale or slate.\n\n\n\n\nXXVIII--QUESTION AS TO THE OBJECTS AS ORNAMENTS OF THE PERSON\n\n\nDr. Munro now objects that among the objects reckoned by me as analogous\nto churinga is a perforated stone with an incised line, and smaller\nslanting side lines, said to have been found at Dumbuck; \"9 inches long,\n3.5 inches broad, and 0.5 an inch thick.\" {108}  I wish that he gave us\nthe weight.  He says, \"that no human being would wear this as an\nornament.\"\n\nNo human being wears any churinga \"as an ornament!\"  Nobody says that\nthey do.\n\nMessrs. Spencer and Gillen, moreover, speak of \"a long stone churinga,\"\nand of \"especially large ones\" made by the mythical first ancestors of\nthe race.  Churinga, over a foot in length, they tell us, are not usually\nperforated; many churinga are not perforated, many are: _but the Arunta\ndo not know why some are perforated_.  There is a legend that, of old,\nmen hung up the perforated churinga on the sacred _Nurtunja_ pole: and so\nthey still have _perforated_ stone churinga, not usually more than a foot\nin length. {109}\n\nIf Dr. Munro has studied Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, he cannot but know\nthat churinga are not ornaments, are not all oval, but of many shapes and\nsizes, and that churinga larger than the 9 inch perforated stone from\nDumbuck are perforated, and attached to strings.  I cannot tell the\nreason why, any better than the Arunta can; and, of course, I cannot know\nwhy the 9 inch stone from Dumbuck (if genuine) was perforated.  But what\nI must admire is the amazing luck or learning of Dr. Munro's supposed\nimpostor.  Not being \"a semi-detached idiot\" he must have known that no\nmortal would sling about his person, as an ornament, a chunk of stone 9\ninches long, 3.5 broad, and 0.5 an inch thick.  Dr. Munro himself insists\non the absurdity of supposing that \"any human being\" would do such a\nthing.  Yet the forger drilled a neat hole, as if for a string for\nsuspension, at the apex of the chunk.  If he knew, before any other human\nbeing in England, that the Arunta do this very thing to some stone\nchuringa, though seldom to churinga over a foot in length,--and if he\nimitated the Arunta custom, the impostor was a very learned impostor.  If\nhe did _not_ know, he was a very lucky rogue, for the Arunta coincide in\ndoing the same thing to great stone churinga: without being aware of any\nmotive for the performance as they never suspend churinga to anything,\nthough they say that their mythical ancestors did.\n\nThe impostor was also well aware of the many perforated stones that exist\nin Scotland, not referred to by Dr. Munro.  He perforated some which\ncould not be worn as ornaments, just as the Arunta do.  We shall find\nthat the forger, either by dint of wide erudition, or by a startling set\nof chance coincidences, keeps on producing objects which are analogous to\ngenuine relics found in many sites of early life.\n\nThis is what makes the forger so interesting.\n\nMy theory of the forger is at the opposite pole from the theory of Dr.\nMunro.  He says that, \"in applying these local designs\" (the worldwide\narchaic patterns,) to unworked splinters of sandstone and pieces of water-\nworn shale and slate, \"the manufacturers had evidently not sufficient\narchaeological knowledge to realise the significance of the fact that\nthey were doing what prehistoric man, in this country, is never known to\nhave done before.\" {111}\n\nBut, (dismissing the Kintyre and Tappock stones,) the \"manufacturers\" did\nknow, apparently, that perforated and inscribed, or uninscribed tablets\nand plaques of shale and schist and slate and gas coal were found in\nAmerica, France, Russia, and Portugal, and imitated these things or\ncoincided in the process by sheer luck.  The \"manufacturers\" were,\nperhaps, better informed than many of their critics.  But, if the things\nare genuine, more may be found by research in the locality.\n\n\n\n\nXXIX--WEAPONS\n\n\nDr. Munro is less than kind to the forger in the matter of the \"weapons\"\nfound at Dunbuie and Dumbuck.  They are \"absolutely worthless as real\nweapons,\" he says, with perfect truth, for they are made of slate or\nshale, _not_ of hard stony slate, which many races used to employ for\nlack of better material. {112a}\n\n{ Fig. 16: p113a.jpg}\n\nThe forger was obviously not thinking of dumping down _serviceable_ sham\nweapons.  He could easily have bought as many genuine flint celts and\narrow-heads and knives as he needed, had his aim been to prove his sites\nto be neolithic.  So I argued long ago, in a newspaper letter.  Dr. Munro\nreplies among other things, that \"nothing could be easier than to detect\nmodern imitations of Neolithic relics.\" {112b}  I said not a word about\n\"modern imitations.\"  I said that a forger, anxious to fake a Neolithic\nsite, \"would, of course, drop in a few Neolithic arrow-heads, 'celts' and\nso forth,\" meaning genuine objects, very easily to be procured for money.\n\n{ Figs. 17, 18: p113b.jpg}\n\nAs the forger did not adopt a device so easy, so obvious, and so\ndifficult of detection, (if he purchased Scottish flint implements) his\naim was not to fake a Neolithic site.  He put in, not well-known genuine\nNeolithic things, but things of a character with which some of his\ncritics were not familiar, yet which have analogues elsewhere.\n\nWhy did he do that?\n\nAs to the blunt decorated slate weapons, the forger did not mean, I\nthink, to pass off these as practicable arms of the Neolithic period.\nThese he could easily have bought from the dealers.  What he intended to\ndump down were not practical weapons, but, in one case at least, _armes\nd'apparat_, as French archaeologists call them, weapons of show or\nceremony.\n\nThe strange \"vandyked\" crozier-like stone objects of schist or shale from\nPortugal were possibly _armes d'apparat_, or heads of staves of dignity.\nThere is a sample in the American room at the British Museum,\nuninscribed.  I submit that the three very curious and artistic stone axe-\nheads, figured by M. Cartailhac, {114} representing, one an uncouth\nanimal; another, a hooded human head, the third an extremely pretty girl,\ncould never have been used for practical purposes, but were _armes\nd'apparat_.  Perhaps such stone _armes d'apparat_, or magical or sacred\narms, were not unknown, as survivals, in Scotland in the Iron Age.  A\n\"celt\" or stone axe-head of this kind, ornamented with a pattern of inter-\ncrossing lines, is figured and described by the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie\n(Kenmore) in the _Proceedings_ of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries\n(1900-1901, p. 310 _et seq._).  This axe-head, found near a cairn at\nBalnahannait, is of five inches long by two and a quarter broad.  It is\nof \"soft micaceous stone.\"  The owners must have been acquainted with the\nuse of the metals, Mr. Mackenzie thinks, for the stone exhibits\n\"interlaced work of a late variety of this ornamentation.\"  Mr. Mackenzie\nsuggests that the ornament was perhaps added \"after the axe had obtained\nsome kind of venerated or symbolical character.\"  This implies that a\nmetal-working people, finding a stone axe, were puzzled by it, venerated\nit, and decorated it in their late style of ornament.\n\nIn that case, who, in earlier times, made an useless axe-head of soft\nmicaceous stone, and why?  It could be of no practical service.  On the\nother hand, people who had the metals might fashion a soft stone into an\n_arme d'apparat_.  \"It cannot have been intended for ordinary use,\" \"the\naxe may have been a sacred or ceremonial one,\" says Mr. Mackenzie, and he\nmakes the same conjecture as to another Scottish stone axe-head. {115}\n\nHere, then, if Mr. Mackenzie be right, we have a soft stone axe-head,\ndecorated with \"later ornament,\" the property of a people who knew the\nmetals, and regarded the object as \"a sacred or ceremonial one,\" _enfin_,\nas an _arme d'apparat_.\n\nDr. Munro doubtless knows all that is known about _armes d'apparat_, but\nhe unkindly forgets to credit the forger with the same amount of easily\naccessible information, when the forger dumps down a decorated slate\nspear-head, eleven inches long.\n\nBelieve me, this forger was no fool: he knew what he was about, and he\nmust have laughed when critics said that his slate spear-heads would be\nuseless.  He expected the learned to guess what he was forging; not\npracticable weapons, but _armes d'apparat_; survivals of a ceremonial\nkind, like Mr. Mackenzie's decorated axe-head of soft stone.\n\n_That_, I think, was our forger's little game; for even if he thought no\nmore than Dr. Munro seems to do of the theory of \"survivals,\" he knew\nthat the theory is fashionable.  \"Nothing like these spear-heads . . .\nhas hitherto been found in Scotland, so that they cannot be survivals\nfrom a previous state of things in our country,\" says Dr. Munro. {116a}\nThe argument implies that there is nothing in the soil of our country of\na nature still undiscovered.  This is a large assumption, especially if\nMr. Mackenzie be right about the sacred ceremonial decorated axe-head of\nsoft stone.  The forger, however, knew that elsewhere, if not in\nScotland, there exist useless _armes d'apparat_, and he obviously meant\nto fake a few samples.  He was misunderstood.  I knew what he was doing,\nfor it seems that \"Mr. Lang . . . suggested that the spear-heads were not\nmeant to be used as weapons, but as 'sacred things.'\" {116b}  I knew\nlittle; but I did know the sacred boomerang-shaped decorated Arunta\nchuringa, and later looked up other _armes d'apparat_. {116c}\n\nApparently I must have \"coached\" the forger, and told him what kinds of\nthings to fake.  But I protest solemnly that I am innocent!  He got up\nthe subject for himself, and knew more than many of his critics.  I had\nno more to do with the forger than M. Salomon Reinach had to do with\nfaking the golden \"tiara of Saitaphernes,\" bought by the Louvre for 8000\npounds.  M. Reinack denies the suave suggestion that _he_ was at the\nbottom of this imposture. {117a}  I also am innocent of instructing the\nClyde forger.  He read books, English, French, German, American, Italian,\nPortuguese, and Spanish.\n\nFrom the _Bulletino di Palaetnologia Italiana_, vol. xi. p. 33, 1885,\nplate iv., and from Professor Pigorini's article there, he prigged the\nidea of a huge stone weapon, of no use, found in a grotto near Verona.\n{117b}  This object is of flint, shaped like a flint arrow-head; is ten\ninches and a half in length, and \"weighs over 3.5 pounds.\"  \"Pigorini\nconjectured that it had some religious signification.\"\n\nInspired by this arrow-head of Gargantua, the Clyde forger came in with a\nstill longer decorated slate spear-head, weighing I know not how much.  It\nis here photographed (figs. 17, 18).  Compare the decoration of three\nparallel horizontal lines with that on the broken Portuguese perforated\nstone (figs. 9, 10).  Or did the Veronese forger come to Clyde, and carry\non the business at Dumbuck?  The man has read widely.  Sometimes,\nhowever, he may have resorted to sources which, though excellent, are\naccessible and cheap, like Mr. Haddon's _Evolution in Art_.  Here (pp.\n79, 80) the faker could learn all that he needed to know about _armes\nd'apparat_ in the form of stone axe-heads, \"unwieldy and probably quite\nuseless objects\" found by Mr. Haddon in the chain of isles south-east of\nNew Guinea.  Mr. Romilly and Dr. Wyatt Gill attest the existence of\nsimilar axes of ceremony.  \"They are not intended for cleaving timber.\"\nWe see \"the metamorphosis of a practical object into an unpractical one.\"\n{118}\n\nThe forger thus had sources for his great decorated slate spear-head; the\nsmaller specimens may be sketches for that colossal work.\n\n\n\n\nXXX--THE FIGURINES\n\n\nDr. Munro writes of \"the carved figurines, 'idols,' or 'totems,' six in\nnumber,\" four from Dumbuck, one from Langbank. {119a}  Now, first, nobody\nknows the purpose of the rude figurines found in many sites from Japan to\nTroy, from Russia to the Lake Dwellings of Europe, and in West Africa,\nwhere the negroes use these figurines, when found, as \"fetish,\" knowing\nnothing of their origin (_Man_, No. 7, July, 1905).  Like a figurine of a\nwoman, found in the Dumbuck kitchen midden, they are discovered in old\nJapanese kitchen middens. {119b}\n\nThe astute forger, knowing that figurines were found in Japanese kitchen\nmiddens, knowing it before Y. Koganei published the fact in 1903, thought\nthe Dumbuck kitchen midden an appropriate place for a figurine.  Dr.\nMunro, possibly less well-informed, regards the bottom of a kitchen\nmidden at Dumbuck as \"a strange resting place for a goddess.\" {120a}  Now,\nas to \"goddess\" nobody knows anything.  Dr. Schliemann thought that the\nmany figurines of clay, in Troy, were meant for Hera and Athene.  Nobody\nknows, but every one not wholly ignorant sees the absurdity of speaking\nof figurines as \"totems\"; of course the term is not Dr. Munro's.\n\n{ Fig. 19: p120a.jpg}\n\nWe know not their original meaning, but they occur \"all over the place\";\nin amber on the Baltic coast, with grotesque faces carved in amber.  In\nRussia and Finland, and in sites of prehistoric Egypt, on slate, and in\nother materials such grotesques are common. {120b}  Egypt is a great\ncentre of the Early Slate School of Art, the things ranging from slate\nplaques covered with disorderly scratchings \"without a conscience or an\naim,\" to highly decorated _palettes_.  There is even a perforated object\nlike the slate crooks of M. Cartailhac, from Portugal, but rather more\nlike the silhouette of a bird, {121a} and there are decorative mace-heads\nin soft stone. {121b}  Some of the prehistoric figurines of human beings\nfrom Egypt are studded with \"cups,\" _cupules_, _ecuelles_, or whatever we\nmay be permitted to name them.  In short, early and rude races turn out\nmuch the same set of crude works of art almost everywhere, and the\nextraordinary thing is, not that a few are found in a corner of Britain,\nbut that scarce any have been found.\n\n{ Figs. 20, 21: p120b.jpg}\n\nAs to the Russo-Finnish flint figurines, Mr. Abercromby thinks that these\nobjects may \"have served as household gods or personal amulets,\" and Dr.\nMunro regards Mr. Abercromby's as \"the most rational explanation of their\nmeaning and purpose.\"  He speaks of figurines of clay (the most usual\nmaterial) in Carniola, Bosnia, and Transylvania.  \"Idols and amulets were\nindeed universally used in prehistoric times.\" {121c}  \"Objects which\ncome under the same category\" occur \"in various parts of America.\"  Mr.\nBruce {121d} refers to M. Reinach's vast collection of designs of such\nfigurines in _L'Anthropologie_, vol. v., 1894.  Thus rude figurines in\nsites of many stages are very familiar objects.  The forger knew it, and\ndumped down a few at Dumbuck.  His female figurine (photographed in fig.\n19), seems to me a very \"plausible\" figurine in itself.  It does not\nappear to me \"unlike anything in any collection in the British Isles, or\nelsewhere\"--I mean _elsewhere_.  Dr. Munro admits that it discloses \"the\nhand of one not altogether ignorant of art.\" {122}  I add that it\ndiscloses the hand of one not at all ignorant of genuine prehistoric\nfigurines representing women.\n\nBut I know nothing analogous from _British_ sites.  Either such things do\nnot exist (of which we cannot be certain), or they have escaped discovery\nand record.  Elsewhere they are, confessedly, well known to science, and\ntherefore to the learned forger who, nobody can guess why, dumped them\ndown with the other fraudulent results of his researches.\n\nIf the figurines be genuine, I suppose that the Clyde folk made them for\nthe same reasons as the other peoples who did so, whatever those reasons\nmay have been: or, like the West Africans, found them, relics of a\nforgotten age, and treasured them.  If their reasons were religious or\nsuperstitious, how am I to know what were the theological tenets of the\nClyde residents?  They may have been more or less got at by Christianity,\nin Saint Ninian's time, but the influence might well be slight.  On the\nother hand, neither men nor angels can explain why the forger faked his\nfigurines, for which he certainly had a model--at least as regards the\nfemale figure--in a widely distributed archaic feminine type of \"dolly.\"\nThe forger knew a good deal!\n\nDr. Munro writes: \"That the disputed objects are amusing playthings--the\nsportive productions of idle wags who inhabited the various sites--seems\nto be the most recent opinion which finds acceptance among local\nantiquaries.  But this view involves the contemporaneity of occupancy of\nthe respective sites, of which there is no evidence. . . .\" {123a}\n\nThere is no evidence for \"contemporaneity of occupancy\" if Dunbuie be of\n300-900 A.D., and Dumbuck and Langbank of 1556-1758. {123b}  But we, and\napparently Dr. Munro (p. 264) have rejected the \"Corporation cairn\"\ntheory, the theory of the cairn erected in 1556, or 1612, and lasting\ntill 1758.  The genuine undisputed relics, according to Dr. Munro, are\nsuch as \"are commonly found on crannogs, brochs, and other early\ninhabited sites of Scotland.\" {124a}  The sites are all, and the genuine\nrelics in the sites are all \"of some time between the fifth and twelfth\ncenturies.\" {124b}  The sites are all close to each other, the remains\nare all of the same period, (unless the late Celtic comb chance to be\nearlier,) yet Dr. Munro says that \"for contemporaneity of occupancy there\nis no evidence.\" {124c}  He none the less repeats the assertion that they\nare of \"precisely the same chronological horizon.\"  \"The chronological\nhorizon\" (of Langbank and Dumbuck) \"_seems to me to be precisely the\nsame_, _viz._ a date well on in the early Iron Age, posterior to the\nRoman occupation of that part of Britain\" (p. 147).\n\nThus Dr. Munro assigns to both sites \"precisely the same chronological\nhorizon,\" and also says that \"there is no evidence\" for the\n\"contemporaneity of occupancy.\"  This is not, as it may appear, an\nexample of lack of logical consistency.  \"The range of the occupancy\" (of\nthe sites) \"is uncertain, probably it was different in each case,\" writes\nDr. Munro. {124d}  No reason is given for this opinion, and as all the\nundisputed remains are confessedly of one stage of culture, the \"wags\" at\nall three sites were probably in the same stage of rudimentary humour and\nskill.  If they made the things, the things are not modern forgeries.  But\nthe absence of the disputed objects from other sites of the same period\nremains as great a difficulty as ever.  Early \"wags\" may have made\nthem--but why are they only known in the three Clyde sites?  Also, why\nare the painted pebbles only known in a few brochs of Caithness?\n\nHave the _graffiti_ on slate at St. Blane's, in Bute, been found--I mean\nhave _graffiti_ on slate like those of St. Blane's, been found elsewhere\nin Scotland? {125}  The kinds of art, writing, and Celtic ornament, at\nSt. Blane's, are all familiar, but not their presence on scraps of slate.\nSome of the \"art\" of the Dumbuck things is also familiar, but not, in\nScotland, on pieces of slate and shale.  Whether they were done by early\nwags, or by a modern and rather erudite forger, I know not, of course; I\nonly think that the question is open; is not settled by Dr. Munro.\n\n\n\n\nXXXI--GROTESQUE HEADS.  DISPUTED PORTUGUESE PARALLELS\n\n\nFigurines are common enough things in ancient sites; by no means so\ncommon are the grotesque heads found at Dumbuck and Langbank.  They have\nrecently been found in Portugal.  Did the forger know that?  Did he forge\nthem on Portuguese models?  Or was it chance coincidence?  Or was it\nundesigned parallelism?  There is such a case according to Mortillet.  M.\nde Mortillet flew upon poor Prof. Pigorini's odd things, denouncing them\nas forgeries; he had attacked Dr. Schliemann's finds in his violent way,\nand never apologised, to my knowledge.\n\nThen a lively squabble began.  Italian \"archaeologists of the highest\nstanding\" backed Prof. Pigorini: Mortillet had not seen the Italian\nthings, but he stood to his guns.  Things found near Cracow were taken as\ncorroborating the Breonio finds, also things from Volosova, in Russia.\nMortillet replied by asking \"why under similar conditions could not\nforgers\" (very remote in space,) \"equally fabricate objects of the same\nform.\" {127}  Is it likely?\n\nWhy should they forge similar unheard-of things in Russia, Poland, and\nItaly?  Did the same man wander about forging, or was telepathy at work,\nor do forging wits jump?  The Breonio controversy is undecided;\n\"practised persons\" can _not_ \"read the antiquities as easily as print,\"\nto quote Mr. Read.  They often read them in different ways, here as\nfakes, there as authentic.\n\nM. Boulle, reviewing Dr. Munro in _L'Anthropologie_ (August, 1905), says\nthat M. Cartailhac recognises the genuineness of some of the strange\nobjects from Breonio.\n\nBut, as to our Dumbuck things, the Clyde forger went to Portugal and\nforged there; or the Clyde forger came from Portugal; or forging wits\ncoincided fairly well, in Portugal and in Scotland, as earlier, at\nVolosova and Breonio.\n\nIn _Portugalia_, a Portuguese archaeological magazine, edited by Don\nRicardo Severe, appeared an article by the Rev. Father Jose Brenha on the\ndolmens of Pouco d'Aguiar.  Father Raphael Rodrigues, of that place,\nasked Father Brenha to excavate with him in the Christmas holidays of\n1894.  They published some of their discoveries in magazines, and some of\nthe finds were welcomed by Dr. Leite de Vasconcellos, in his _Religioes\nda Lusitania_ (vol. i. p. 341).  They dug in the remote and not very\ncultured Transmontane province, and, in one dolmen found objects \"the\nmost extraordinary possible,\" says Father Brenha. {128}  There were\nperforated plaques with alphabetic inscriptions; stones engraved with\nbeasts of certain or of dubious species, very fearfully and wonderfully\ndrawn; there were stone figurines of females, as at Dumbuck; there were\nstones with cups and lines connecting the cups, (common in many places)\nand, as at Dumbuck, there were grotesque heads in stone.  (See a few\nexamples, figs. 20-24).\n\nFigures 20, 21, 24 are cupped, or cup and duct stones; 22 is a female\nfigurine; 23 is a heart-shaped charm stone.\n\n{ Fig. 22: p128.jpg}\n\nOn all this weighty mass of stone objects, Dr. Munro writes thus:\n\n   \"Since the MS. of this volume was placed in the hands of the\n   publishers a new side-issue regarding some strange objects, said to\n   have been found in Portuguese dolmens, has been imported into the\n   Clyde controversy, in which Mr. Astley has taken a prominent part.  In\n   a communication to the _Antiquary_, April, 1904, he writes: 'I will\n   merely say here, on this point, that my arguments are brought to a\n   scientific conclusion in my paper, 'Portuguese Parallels to Clydeside\n   Discoveries,' reported in your issue for March, which will shortly be\n   published.\n\n   \"I have seen the article in _Portugalia_ and the published 'scientific\n   conclusion' of Mr. Astley (_Journal of B.A.A._, April and August,\n   1904), and can only say that, even had I space to discuss the matter I\n   would not do so for two reasons.  First, because I see no parallelism\n   whatever between the contrasted objects from the Portuguese dolmens\n   and the Clyde ancient sites, beyond the fact that they are both 'queer\n   things.'  And, secondly, because some of the most eminent European\n   scholars regard the objects described and illustrated in _Portugalia_\n   as forgeries.  The learned Director of the Musee de St. Germain, M.\n   Saloman Reinach, thus writes about them: 'Jusqu'a nouvel ordre, c'est-\n   a-dire jusqu'a preuve formelle du contraire je considere ces pierres\n   sculptees et gravees comme le produit d'une mystification.  J'aimerais\n   connaitre, a ce sujet, l'opinion des autres savants du Portugal'\n   (_Revue Archeologique_, 4th S., vol. ii., 1903, p. 431).\"\n\nI had brought the Portuguese things to the notice of English readers long\nbefore Mr. Astley did so, but that is not to the purpose.\n\nThe point is that Dr. Munro denies the parallelism between the Clyde and\nPortuguese objects.  Yet I must hold that stone figurines of women,\ngrotesque heads in stone, cupped stones, stones with cup and duct, stones\nwith rays proceeding from a central point, and perforated stones with\nlinear ornamentation, are rather \"parallel,\" in Portugal and in\nClydesdale.\n\nSo far the Scottish and the Portuguese fakers have hit on parallel lines\nof fraud.  Meanwhile I know of no archaeologists except Portuguese\narchaeologists, who have seen the objects from the dolmen, and of no\nPortuguese archaeologist who disputes their authenticity.  So there the\nmatter rests. {130}  The parallelism appears to me to be noticeable.  I\ndo not say that the styles of art are akin, but that the artists, by a\ncommon impulse, have produced cupped stones, perforated and inscribed\nstones, figurines in stone, and grotesque heads in stone.\n\nIs not this common impulse rather curious?  And is suspicion of forgery\nto fall, in Portugal, on respectable priests, or on the very uncultured\nwags of Traz os Montes?  Mortillet, educated by priests, hated and\nsuspected all of them.  M. Cartailhac suspected \"clericals,\" as to the\nSpanish cave paintings, but acknowledged his error.  I can guess no\nmotive for the ponderous bulk of Portuguese forgeries, and am a little\nsuspicious of the tendency to shout \"Forgery\" in the face of everything\nunfamiliar.\n\nBut the Portuguese things are suspected by M. Cartailhac, (who, however,\nagain admits that he has been credulously incredulous before,) as well as\nby M. Reinach.  The things ought to be inspected in themselves.  I still\nthink that they are on parallel lines with the work of the Clyde forger,\nwho may have read about them in _A Vida Moderna_ 1895, 1896, in\n_Archeologo Portugues_, in _Encyclopedia dar Familiar_, in various\nnumbers, and in _Religioes da Lusitania_, vol. i. pp. 341, 342, (1897), a\nwork by the learned Director of the Ethnological Museum of Portugal.  To\nthese sources the Dumbuck forger may have gone for inspiration.\n\nStated without this elegant irony, my opinion is that the parallelism of\nthe figurines and grotesque stone faces of Villa d'Aguiar and of Clyde\nrather tends to suggest the genuineness of both sets of objects.  But\nthis opinion, like my opinion about the Australian and other\nparallelisms, is no argument against Dr. Munro, for he acknowledges none\nof these parallelisms.  That point,--a crucial point,--are the various\nsets of things analogous in character or not? must be decided for each\nreader by himself, according to his knowledge, taste, fancy, and bias.\n\n\n\n\nXXXII--DISPUTED OBJECTS FROM DUNBUIE\n\n\nThe faker occasionally changes his style.  We have seen what slovenly\ndesigns in the archaic cup and ring and incomplete circle style he dumped\ndown at Dumbuck.  I quote Dr. Munro on his doings at Dunbuie, where the\nfaker occasionally drops a pear-shaped slate perforated stone, with a\ndesign in cupules.  Dr. Munro writes:\n\n   \"The most meaningless group--if a degree of comparison be admissible\n   in regard to a part when the whole is absolutely incomprehensible on\n   archaeological principles--consists of a series of unprepared and\n   irregularly shaped pieces of laminated sandstone (plate xvi.) similar\n   to some of the stones of which the fort of Dunbuie was built, {132}\n   having one of their surfaces decorated with small cup-marks, sometimes\n   symmetrically arranged so far as to indicate parts of geometrical\n   figures, and at other times variously combined with lines and circles.\n   Two fragments of bones, also from Dunbuie, are similarly adorned\n   (plate xvi. nos. 13, 14).  Eleven of the twelve sandstone fragments\n   which make up the group were fractured in such a manner as to suggest\n   that the line of fracture had intersected the original ornamentation,\n   and had thus detached a portion of it.  If this be so, there must have\n   been originally at least two or three other portions which, if found,\n   would fit along the margin of each of the extant portions, just as the\n   fragments of a broken urn come together.  Yet among these decorated\n   stones not one single bit fits another, nor is any of the designs the\n   counterpart of another.  If we suppose that these decorated stones are\n   portions of larger tablets on which the designs were completed, then\n   either they were broken before being introduced into the debris of the\n   fort, or the designs were intentionally executed in an incomplete\n   state, just as they are now to be seen on the existing natural\n   splinters of stone.  The supposition that the occupiers of the fort\n   possessed the original tablets, and that they had been smashed on the\n   premises, is excluded by the significant fact that only one fragment\n   of each tablet has been discovered.  For, in the breaking up of such\n   tablets, it would be inconceivable, according to the law of chances,\n   that one portion, and only one, of each different specimen would\n   remain while all the others had disappeared.  On the other hand, the\n   hypothesis that the occupiers of the fort carved these designs on the\n   rough and unprepared splinters of stone in the precise manner they now\n   come before us, seems to me to involve premeditated deception, for it\n   is difficult to believe that such uncompleted designs could have any\n   other finality of purpose.\n\n   Looking at these geometrical figures from the point of technique, they\n   do not make a favourable impression in support of their genuineness.\n   The so-called cup-marks consist of punctures of two or three different\n   sizes, so many corresponding to one size and so many to another.  The\n   stiffness of the lines and circles reminds one more of ruler and\n   compass than of the freehand work of prehistoric artists.  The\n   patterns are unprecedented for their strange combinations of art\n   elements.  For example, no. 9, plate xvi., looks as if it were a\n   design for some modern machinery.  The main ornament on another\n   fragment of sandstone (no. 12), consisting of a cross and circle\n   composed of a series of cup-marls, seems to be a completed design; but\n   yet at the corner there are lines which are absolutely meaningless,\n   unless we suppose that they formed part of a more enlarged tablet.\n   Similar remarks apply to nos. 3 and 8.\"\n\nIs it really contrary to \"the law of chances\" that, in some 1200 years of\nunknown fortunes, no two fragments of the same plates of red sandstone\n(some dozen in number) should be found at Dunbuie?  Think of all that may\nhave occurred towards the scattering of fragments of unregarded sandstone\nbefore the rise of soil hid them all from sight.  Where is the smaller\nportion of the shattered cup and ring marked sandstone block found in the\nLochlee crannog?  On the other hand, in the same crannog, a hammerstone\nbroken in two was found, each half in a different place, as were two\nparts of a figurine at Dumbuck.  Where are the arms of the Venus of Milo,\nvainly sought beside and around the rest of the statue?  Where are the\nlost noses, arms, and legs of thousands of statues?  Nobody can guess\nwhere they are or how they vanished.  Or where are the lost fragments of\ncountless objects in pottery found in old sites?\n\nIt was as easy for the forger to work over a whole plaque of sandstone,\nbreak it, and bury the pieces, as for him to do what he has done.\n\nThese designs make an unfavourable impression because some, not all of\nthem, are stiff and regular.  The others make an unfavourable impression\nbecause they are so laxly executed.  For what conceivable purpose did the\nforger here resort to the aid of compasses, and elsewhere do nothing of\nthe kind?  Why should the artist, if an old resident of Dunbuie fort, not\nhave compasses, like the Cairn-wight of Lough Crew?\n\nOn inspecting the pieces, in the Museum, the regularity of design seems\nto me to be much exaggerated in Dr. Munro's figures, by whom drawn we are\nnot informed.\n\nAs to Dr. Munro's figure 12, it seems to me to aim at a Celtic cross and\ncircle, while part of his figure 3 suggests a crozier, and there is a\ncross on figure 18, as on a painted pebble from a broch in Caithness.  The\nrest I cannot profess to explain; they look like idle work on sandstone,\nbut may have had a meaning to their fashioner.  His meaning, and that of\nthe forger who here changes his style, are equally inscrutable.\n\nI return to a strange perforated pebble, an intaglio from Dumbuck.\n\n{ Fig. 23: p136a.jpg}\n\nDr. Munro quotes, as to this pebble, the _Journal_ of the British\nArchaeological Association: \"In the September number of the _Journal_ (p.\n282) we are informed that a slaty spear-head, an arrow-head of bone, and\na sinker stone were found in the debris inside the canoe.  'In the cavity\nof a large bone,' says the writer, 'was also got an ornament of a\npeculiar stone.  The digger unearthed it from the deposit at the bottom\nof the canoe, about 14 feet from the bow and near to a circular hole cut\nin the bottom about 3.5 inches in diameter.'  What a funny place to hide\na precious ornament, for I take this peculiar stone to be that with the\nhuman hand incised on one side and three men rowing in a boat on the\nother! (see plate xv. no. 10).\"\n\n{ Fig. 24: p136b.jpg}\n\nHere the place of discovery in the canoe is given with precision, and its\nplace within the cavity of the bone is pronounced by Dr. Munro to be\n\"funny.\"  As to the three men in a boat, the Rev. Geo. Wilson of\nGlenluce, on Feb. 14, 1887, presented to the Scots Antiquaries a bugle-\nshaped pendant of black shale or cannel-coal 2.25 inches long, with a\ncentral groove for suspension.  On one side of the pendant was incised a\nsketch of two figures standing up in a boat or canoe with a high prow.\nThe pendant is undisputed, the pebble is disputed, and we know nothing\nmore about the matter (see fig. 25).\n\n{ Fig. 25: p136c.jpg}\n\n\n\n\nXXXIII--DISPUTABLE AND CERTAINLY FORGED OBJECTS\n\n\nIn his judicious remarks to the Society of Antiquaries, (_Proceedings_,\nxxxiv.,) Dr. Joseph Anderson observed that opinions would probably vary\nas to certain among the disputed objects.  Among these are the inscribed\noyster shells.  I see nothing _a priori_ improbable in the circumstance\nthat men who incised certain patterns on schist or shale, should do so on\noyster shells.  Palaeolithic man did his usual sporting sketches on\nshells, and there was a vast and varied art of designing on shells among\nthe pre-Columbian natives of North America. {137}  We here see the most\nprimitive scratches developing into full-blown Aztec art.\n\nIf the markings were only on such inscribed shells as mouldered away--so\nMr. Bruce tells us--when exposed to light and air, (I do not know whether\nthe designs were copied before the shells crumbled,) these conchological\ndrawings would not trouble us.  No modern could make the designs on\nshells that were hurrying into dust.  We have Mr. Bruce's word for these\nmouldering shells, and we have the absolute certainty that such\ndecomposing shells could not be incised by a hand of to-day, as shale,\nslate, schist, and sandstone can now be engraved upon, fraudulently.\n\nBut when, as Professor Boyd Dawkins writes, the finds include \"two fresh\nshells . . . unmistakable Blue Points,\" drilled with perforations, or\ninscribed, from Dunbuie, then there are only two possible alternatives.\n\n1.  They were made by the faker, or\n\n2.  They were \"interpolated\" into the Dunbuie site by somebody.\n\nThe forger himself is, I think, far too knowing a man to fake\ninscriptions on fresh shells, even if, not being a conchologist, he did\nnot know that the oysters were American blue points.\n\nI have written in vain if the reader, while believing in the hypothesis\nof a forger, thinks him such an egregious ass.  For Blue Points as non-\nexistent save in America, 1 rely on Prof. Boyd Dawkins.\n\nAs the public were allowed to break off and steal the prow of the Dumbuck\ncanoe, it is plain that no guard was placed on the sites.  They lay open\nfor months to the interpolations of wags, and I think, for my own part,\nthat one of them is likely to have introduced the famous blue points.\n\nDr. Munro tells us how a \"large-worked stone,\" a grotesque head, was\nfoisted through a horizontal hole, into the relic bed of his kitchen\nmidden at Elie.  \"It lay under four inches of undisturbed black earth.\"\nBut it had been \"interpolated\" there by some \"lousy tykes of Fife,\" as\nthe anti-covenanting song calls them. {139}\n\nIt was rather easier to interpolate Blue Point oyster shells at Dunbuie.\nOn the other hand, two splinters of stone, inserted into a bone and a\ntyne of deer's horn, figured by Dr. Munro among Dumbuck and Dunbuie\nfinds, seem to me rather too stupid fakes for the regular forger, and a\ntrifle too clever for the Sunday holiday-maker.  These two things I do\nnot apologise for, or defend; my knowledge of primitive implements is\nthat of a literary man, but for what it is worth, it does not incline me\nto regard these things as primitive implements.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIV--CONCLUSION\n\n\n_EXPLICIT_!  I have tried to show cause why we should not bluntly dismiss\nthe mass of disputed objects as forgeries, but should rest in a balance\nof judgment, file the objects for reference, and await the results of\nfuture excavations.  If there be a faker, I hope he appreciates my\nsympathetic estimate of his knowledge, assiduity, and skill in _leger de\nmain_.\n\nI am the forger's only friend, and I ask him to come forward and make a\nclean breast of it, like the young men who hoaxed the Society for\nPsychical Research with a faked wraith, or phantasm of the living.\n\n   \"Let it fully now suffice,\n      The gambol has been shown!\"\n\nIt seems to me nearly equally improbable that a forger has been at work\non a large scale, and that sets of objects, unexampled in our isle, have\nreally turned up in some numbers.  But then the Caithness painted pebbles\nwere equally without precedent, yet are undisputed.  The proverbial fence\nseems, in these circumstances, to be the appropriate perch for Science,\nin fact a statue of the Muse of Science might represent her as sitting,\nin contemplation, on the fence.  The strong, the very strong point\nagainst authenticity is this: _numbers_ of the disputed objects were\nfound in sites of the early _Iron Age_.  Now such objects, save for a few\nsamples, are only known,--and that in non-British lands,--in _Neolithic_\nsites.  The theory of survival may be thought not to cover the _number_\nof the disputed objects.\n\nGLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n{4}  _Archaeology and False Antiquities_, pp. 259-261.  By Robert Munro,\nM.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A.Scot.  Methuen & Co., London, 1905.\n\n{5a}  Munro, p. xii.\n\n{5b}  Munro, pp. 56-80.  Cf. _L'Homme Prehistorique_, No. 7, pp. 214-218.\n(1905.)\n\n{6}  Methuen, London, 1904, pp. 292.\n\n{7}  Munro, p. 178.\n\n{8a}  Munro, p. 55; cf. his _Lake Dwellings in Europe_, Fig. 13, Nos. 17,\n18, 19.  See _Arch. and False Antiquities_, pp. 21, 22, where Dr. Munro\nacknowledges that he had been taken in.\n\n{8b}  Munro, pp. 41, 42.\n\n{8c}  Munro, pp. 275-279.\n\n{9}  _L'Anthropologie_, 1902, pp. 348-354.\n\n{10}  Munro, pp. 175-176.\n\n{11a}  Munro, p. 152.\n\n{11b}  Munro, pp. 28, 29.\n\n{12}  Munro, p. 130.\n\n{13a}  Munro, p. 155.  Letter of January 7, 1899.\n\n{13b}  Munro, p. 260.\n\n{14a}  Munro, p. 270.\n\n{14b}  Munro, p. 270.\n\n{15}  Bruce, _Proceedings of the Scots Society of Antiquaries_, vol.\nxxxiv. pp. 439, 448, 449.\n\n{17}  _Archaeologia Scotica_, vol. v. p. 146.\n\n{21}  See pages 133, 166.\n\n{24}  March 1899, \"Cup and Ring\"; cf. the same article in my _Magic and\nReligion_, 1901, pp. 241-256.\n\n{25a}  Munro, 133, 134, 150-151.\n\n{25b}  Munro, pp. 139, 140.\n\n{26}  See _Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow_, xxx.\n268, and fig. 4.\n\n{27}  _Journal of the British Archaeological Society_, December 1898.\n\n{28a}  _Prehistoric Scotland_, p. 431.\n\n{28b}  See _Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow_, xxx.\nfig. 4.\n\n{29}  Vol. xxx. 270.\n\n{30}  Vol. xxxiv. p. 438.\n\n{31}  Mr. Alston describes this causeway, and shows it on the plan as\n\"leading from the 'central well' to the burn about 120 fee to west of\ncentre of crannog.\"\n\n{34}  _Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot._ 1899-1900, p. 439.\n\n{35}  _Proc. Scot. Soc. Ant._ 1900-1901, p. 283.\n\n{36a}  _Proceedings S.A.S._ vol. xxxiv. pp. 460-461.\n\n{36b}  Munro, p. 256.\n\n{37}  Munro, p. 146.  Mr. Bruce in _Trans. Glasgow Archaeol. Society_,\nvol. v. N.S. part 1. p. 45.\n\n{38a}  _L'Anthropologie_, xiv. pp. 416-426.\n\n{38b}  Munro, p. 196.\n\n{38c}  Munro, 147, 148.\n\n{39}  Munro, p. 218.\n\n{40a}  Munro, pp. 219-220.\n\n{40b}  Munro, p. 219.\n\n{40c}  _Transactions_, _ut supra_, p. 51.\n\n{41}  _Proc. Soc. Ant._ 1900-1901, pp. 112-148.\n\n{43}  Pp. 135, 177, 257-258, and elsewhere.\n\n{44}  Munro, pp. 177, 257, 258.\n\n{45}  Munro, p. 139.\n\n{46a}  Munro, p. 264.\n\n{46b}  These phrases are from Munro, _Arch. and False Antiquities_, pp.\n138-139.\n\n{47a}  Munro, p. 139.\n\n{47b}  Munro, _Prehistoric Scotland_, p. 420.\n\n{48}  Munro, p. 130.\n\n{49a}  See page 246 of Dr. Munro's article on Raised Beaches, _Proc. Roy.\nSoc. Edinburgh_, vol. xxv. part 3.  The reference is to two Clyde canoes\nbuilt of planks fastened to ribs, suggesting that the builder had seen a\nforeign galley, and imitated it.\n\n{49b}  Munro, pp. 138, 139.\n\n{51a}  _Proceedings Scot. Soc. Ant._ vol. xxxiv. p. 462.\n\n{51b}  Munro, p. 147.\n\n{52a}  _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._ 1900-1901, p. 296.\n\n{52b}  Munro, p. 138.\n\n{52c}  These structures, of course, were of dry stone, without lime and\nmortar.  By what name we call them, \"towers,\" or \"cairns,\" is indifferent\nto me.\n\n{54}  Beda, book 1, chap. i.\n\n{61}  _Proceedings Soc. Scot. Ant._ 1899-1900, vol. xxxiv. pp. 456-458.\n\n{63}  See Prof. Zimmer's _Das Mutterrecht der Pickten_, Rhys's _Celtic\nBritain_, _Rhind Lectures_, and in _Royal Commission's Report on Wales_,\nwith my _History of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 12, 14.\n\n{64a}  _Bureau of Ethnology's Report_, 1896-97, p. 324.  See also the\nessay on \"Indian Pictographs,\" _Report of Bureau_, for 1888-89.\n\n{64b}  MSS. of Mr. Mullen, of Bourke, N.S.W., and of Mr. Charles Lang.\n\n{64c}  Scott, London, 1895.\n\n{64d}  _Op. cit._ p. 178.\n\n{64e}  _Op. cit._ p. 172.\n\n{65}  Munro, p. 246.\n\n{66}  Longmans.\n\n{67}  Munro, p. 177.\n\n{69}  Cartailhac, _Ages Prehistoriques_, p. 97.\n\n{73a}  _L'Anthropologie_, vol. xiv. p. 338.\n\n{73b}  _Proc. S.A.S._, 1878-1879.\n\n{73c}  _Op. cit._ pp. 208, 210.\n\n{74}  Bruce, _ut supra_, p. 446.\n\n{75}  _Bureau of Ethnology_, _Report of_ 1888-1889, p. 193.\n\n{77}  Munro, plate xv. p. 228, p. 249, cf. fig. 63, p. 249.\n\n{78}  Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, figs. 20,\n21, 22, 133; _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, figs. 89, 92, 80,\n81.\n\n{80a}  I have no concern with an object, never seen by Dr. Munro, or by\nme, to my knowledge, but described as a \"churinga\"; in _Journal of\nBritish Archaeological Association_, Sept. 1904, fig. 4, Munro, p. 246.\n\n{80b}  Munro, p. 246.\n\n{81}  See Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, fig. 21, 6; _Northern\nTribes_, fig. 87.\n\n{82a}  Munro, p. 55, referring to _Ancient Lake Dwellings_, fig. 13, nos.\n17, 18, 19.\n\n{82b}  _Proceedings Scot. Soc. Ant._ 1902, p. 168, fig. 4, 1903.\n\n{82c}  Lockhart, iv. 208.\n\n{84a}  Munro, p. 247.\n\n{84b}  Munro, fig. 62, p. 248.\n\n{85a}  _Debut de l'Art_, pp. 124-138.\n\n{85b}  Munro, p. 260.\n\n{85c}  Munro, p. 230.\n\n{85d}  Munro, pp. 204, 205.\n\n{86}  Munro, p. 260.\n\n{88}  _Op. cit._ p. 172.\n\n{89}  Nicholson, _Folk Lore of East Yorkshire_, p. 87, Hull, 1890.\n\n{91}  Haddon, _The Study of Man_, pp. 276, 327.\n\n{95a}  _Man_, 1904, no. 22.\n\n{95b}  For the Caithness brochs, see Dr. Joseph Anderson, _Proc. Soc.\nScot. Ant._, 1900-1901, pp. 112-148.\n\n{95c}  _Native Tribes of North Central Australia_, Spencer and Gillen, p.\n274, 1894.\n\n{96}  _Northern Tribes_, p. 268, fig. 87, 1904.\n\n{97a}  _Glasgow Herald_, letter of October 17th, 1903.\n\n{97b}  Munro, pp. 251-253.\n\n{100a}  Vol. vii. p. 50, cf. _Proceedings Scots Society of Antiquaries_,\nvol. vi. p. 112, and, in Appendix to the same volume, p. 42, plate xix.\n\n{100b}  Anderson, _Scotland in Pagan Times_, p. 88.\n\n{101}  Munro, p. 249, fig. 63.\n\n{102a}  _Les Ages Prehistoriques_, p. 100; cf. J. L. de Vasconcellos'\n_Religioes da Lusitania_, vol. i. p. 69.  Lisboa, 1897.\n\n{102b}  _Antiguedades Monumentaes do Algarve_, i. 298.  Estacio da Veiga,\nLisboa, 1886.\n\n{102c}  _Religioes_, i. 69-70.\n\n{103a}  _Antiguedades_, vol. ii. 429-481.\n\n{103b}  _Religioes_, i. 168.\n\n{103c}  _L'Anthropologie_, vol. xiv. p. 542.\n\n{104}  By Gongora de Martinez.  Madrid, 1868.\n\n{107}  Munro, pp. 232, 234.\n\n{108}  Munro, p. 228.\n\n{109}  _Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 141-145.\n\n{111}  Munro, pp. 260, 261.\n\n{112a}  Munro, p. 158, pp. 223-227.\n\n{112b}  Munro, p. 261.\n\n{114}  _Op. cit._, p. 111-114.\n\n{115}  _Proceedings_, vol. xxiii. p. 272.\n\n{116a}  Munro, p. 255.\n\n{116b}  _Ibid_.\n\n{116c}  _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 150.\n\n{117a}  _L'Anthropologie_, vol. xiv. p. 362.\n\n{117b}  Cf. Munro, p. 57.\n\n{118}  _Op. cit._, p. 84.\n\n{119a}  Munro, p. 230.\n\n{119b}  _L'Anthropologie_, vol. xiv. p. 548.  Dr. Laloy's review of Mr.\nY. Koganei, _Ueber die Urbewohner von Japan_.  Tokyo, 1903.\n\n{120a}  Munro, p. 141.\n\n{120b}  See Cappart, _Primitive Art in Egypt_, p. 154, translated by A.\nS. Griffiths.  Grevel, London, 1905.\n\n{121a}  Cappart, p. 90, fig. 60, p. 92, fig. 62.\n\n{121b}  _Ibid_. p. 95, fig. 66.\n\n{121c}  Munro, p. 80.\n\n{121d}  _Op. cit._, p. 449.\n\n{122}  Munro, p. 231.\n\n{123a}  Munro, p. 262.\n\n{123b}  Dr. Murray in Munro, pp. 257-258.\n\n{124a}  Munro, p. 148.\n\n{124b}  Munro, p. 264.\n\n{124c}  Munro, p. 262.\n\n{124d}  Munro, p. 220.\n\n{125}  Munro, pp. 231-235.\n\n{127}  Munro, pp. 56-73.\n\n{128}  _Portugalia_, i. p. 646.\n\n{130}  See Sr. Severo in _Portugalia_, vol. ii. part i., 1905.\n\n{132}  All the specimens of this group were disinterred from the ruins of\nthis fort.\n\n{137}  See an interesting and well-illustrated paper in _Report of Bureau\non Ethnology_, U.S., vol. ii.\n\n{139}  Munro, _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, 1900-1901, pp. 291-292.","title":"The Clyde Mystery: a Study in Forgeries and Folklore","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":27970}