PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. yal 
at Old Bewick, is situated to the east of a camp. They have been 
found in Northumberland, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Scotland,* 
Orkney, and Ireland. Near Doddington, in close proximity to a 
fort, they are found on two or three rocks, They occur on Cold- 
martin Moor, on Chatton Law, and Cartington Cove in all these 
cases on exposed stones or rocks. As covers to places of 
sepulture, they have been found near Ford, there covering 
burnt bones placed in a hollow without any urn, and at Black 
Heddon in this county, at Coilsfield in Ayrshire, near Edin- 
burgh, on Cloughton Moor, near Scarborough, and on Ber- 
nalby Moor, in Cleveland, placed over urns in which were the 
remains of burnt bodies. All explanation of their meaning 
is, at present, hidden, and though various conjectures have 
been hazarded, none of them appear to bear the impress of 
even probability. It cannot, I think, be questioned that their 
import is religious; their connection with burial, always a 
most sacred rite, and closely joined to the religion of all 
races, points most distinctly to a sacred purpose, but what the 
mystery is which they dimly shadow, may remain for ever 
unknown, at present it is completely hidden from all enquiry. 
They differ from all other symbolical expressions, with which we 
are acquainted, and seem peculiar to the Celtic tribes which once 
peopled all Western Europe: further enquiry may make known 
other instances of their occurrence, and it is not impossible that 
on being found, as it may happen, in connection with other and 
known symbols, some light may hereafter be thrown on their 
meaning. We may expect to find them in France, and more 
especially in Brittany, that stronghold of the Celtic race; in 
Spain, also, we may look for their occurrence, and it may be 
that in the distant eastern cradle of the Aryan family, we may 
hope for an elucidation of these sacred signs of a race which was 
one of the earliest offsets from Central Asia. There can be no 
question that to the same people who built the forts, so many of 
which were visited by our members on the 18th and 19th of 
August, and who interred their dead in cists of stone or in rude 
* They have lately been found entirely covering a rock, in Argyleshire, and at Lochgilp- 
head numbers are found, whenever the turf, which covers the hill side, is remoyed. 
