I 



Transactions. 45 



one I have noticed in England) of a cup surrounded by a circle 

 of cups, instead of a circular line" — seeming to imply by this 

 that the arrangement is at least known on Scottish rocks, or 

 elsewhere. Yet in no one of the numerous plates illustrating his 

 work is there any example given of such an arrangement. The 

 only approach to it is a group of six concentric circles dotted out 

 on a monolith in Sweden. 



Captain Conder, R,E., a great collector of lapidary sculpturings 

 in the East, to whom I wrote about these cup circles, replied that 

 they were new to him. It would be strange if this type proves 

 to be peculiar to one part of the British Isles alone. The whin- 

 stone rock on which this important constellation of cups is carved 

 lies some 200 yards from the centre of the old village of Gait- 

 way.* It trends north and south, and much of it having some 

 fifty years ago been blasted and quarried away, several square 

 yards in all i)robability of sculptured surface have been lost. 

 Beginning at the southern end of the rock, that nearest " The 

 Gatta " (Galtway village), there is a space exposed of five feet by 

 three, and upon this tliere are no fewer than 200 cups and 3 

 plain rings distinguisliable — as shown by the photo-lithograph on 

 PI. III. Tliere are ten central cups ; seven of these have a ring 

 of cups seven in number, and one an additional plain ring. Of 

 tlie three remaining centres, the largest lias, first, two plain ring.s, 

 and beyond these two cup rings containing 21 and 42 cups 

 respectively (?) The next has four circles of cups, beginning with 

 1 4 ; and the third has a small ring of seven cups, and an outer 

 one of fourteen.! The diameter of the largest ring is 15 in., of 

 the next 9^ in., and'^f tlie third 6 in. The cups vary from 3 in. 

 to about I in. in diameter, and are barely lialf an inch deep. Many 

 of them are worn down almost beyond detection. Fifteen feet 

 north of this sculpture is a second cutting perliaps even more 

 interesting and peculiar. (PI. IV.) I have called it a probable 

 attempt at drawing a tree. My friend, Mr Hornel, wlio dis- 

 covered this, made a cast of about a square foot of the lowest or 

 westerly portion of the rock, and was at once struck with the 

 resemblance to a tree. At that time lie had not observed the 

 connection of the main broad straight groove GG with the curved 



* Known to have been inhabited during the Irish Rebellion, 1641. 



t Such at least was the first reading of this ring-puzzle which Mr 

 Hornel and I made. Where all is so vagiie, I think we are as much 

 entitled to a solution of sfven as to a solution of three, which is a favourite 

 interpretation of other ring-sculptures. 



