34 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Janoary, 



We can now turn to the coloured pebbles themselves. These are 

 usually rounded, oblong and flattened water-worn stones of quartz or 

 schist, which have been very rudely painted with red. Sometimes the 

 whole surface is coloured, but more frequently a stone is marked on 

 one or both sides with simple devices ; occasionally the edge of the 

 pebble is coloured so as to form a kind of border to the decoration. 



Mr. Piette classifies these markings under four headings, viz. : — 

 (i) numerals, (2) symbols, (3) pictographic signs, and (4) alphabetical 

 characters. 



Numerals : These markings may be straight lines which run across 

 a pebble (A, B), or may be irregular rounded marks (C, D, E). No 

 stone has as yet been found with more than eight bands (B). Mr. 

 Piette considers the spots as representing units of higher groups, 

 either nines, or more probably tens. In this connection, he points out 

 that the Egyptians used strokes up to nine ; ten was represented by a 

 curve, the tens were grouped like the units; a hundred was indicated by 



It.'mip. 



mM%m 



Diagrams of a dozen Painted Pebbles, traced and reduced by one-third from 

 the figures which illustrate the text of Mr. Piette's paper. 



a spiral. There may be numerous spots on a pebble, one being found 

 which had as many as twenty-three. In some stones a spot or blotch 

 arises from the margin of the pebble (D). The autlior points out 

 that this mark may also have a different value, and suggests that it 

 may be the square of a higher-grade unit ; thus a stone with twelve 

 marginal blotches and six central spots (E) is credited with indicating 

 a total of 1260 in the decimal system and 1728 plus 60 — or 1788 on 

 the hypothesis of a duodecimal system ! This rather staggers Mr. 

 Piette himself, and so he makes the admission that perhaps the 

 differences between the marginal or tangent ovals and the isolated 

 spots have no significance. Then, recalling the fact that a disc has 

 throughout all time been employed to represent the sun, he asks 

 whether they may not be signs in a hieratic writing, or units 

 adopted by great men of the tribe, or even used to denote special 



