XX XVI PROCEEDINGS, 



OrdIjSARY Mketin(!, Province Building, Halifax, 11 th January. 1892. 



Tlie President In /he Chair. 



Inttr alia. 



Mr. K. U. T. Webster, of Yarmouth, read a paper entitled : — " On the 

 Fletcher .Stone." (See Transactions, p. 208.) 



A letter was read from R. B. Brown, Esq,, of Yarmouth, in reference to the 

 Fletcher stone and other inscribed stijnes in Yarmouth County, N. S. In this letter 

 Mr. Brown says : — 



" The alleged discoverer of the Fletcher stone. Dr. Richard Fletcher, an Irish- 

 man by birth, and formerly a surgeon in the British army, settled in Yarmouth 

 in 1809, and as he died in 1818, our first knowledge of it dates back to that 

 period. Dr. Fletcher had it removed from the shore to a safe place near his resi- 

 dence to save it from mutilation, and there it remained for about 60 years, or 

 until about 20 years ago. w hen it was brought round to the east side of the har- 

 bor, I believe, to have casts and photographs made from it. A contemporary of 

 Dr. Fletcher was the late Dr. Henry Greggs Farish, whose son. Dr. G. J. Farish 

 (also deceased), informed me that his father had taken him, when a lad of 15 

 years, to see this curiously marked rock. It will thus be seen that at least 80 

 years ago the stone with its mysterious writing was regarded as genuine by men 

 of studious hal)its and scientific attainments, notwithstanding their inaliility to 

 give an interpretation of its meaning. 



" The original position of the stoi.e was within a few feet of high water mark 

 and about 300 feet south of Salt Pond dyke. A large boulder of quartzite weigh- 

 ing at least 2 > tons, stands near the spot ; and on the south side of this boulder 

 is a cavity from which, without doubt, the Fletcher stone was thrown off, pro- 

 bably by the frost. If Mr. H. Phillips' interpretation of the inscription is correct 

 — " Haka's son addressed the men" — Haka's son may have done so from the 

 summit of this boulder. There is no other rock immediately near it, and the 

 point of land on which it lies is ajjprfiachable at all times of tide. If the woods 

 contained a savage foe, as they probably did about 1000 years ago, no better place 

 could be chosen to prevent a surprise, with water on l)oth flanks and in the rear. 



" My first critical examination of the stone was made when I was about 17 years 

 old. While engaged in making a careful drawing of it, to be submitted by my 

 cousin, Mr. Lawrie of Glasgow, to one of the Scotch Antiquarian Societies, I 

 noticed that at intervals in the glyphs irregidarly ■•shaped thin scales and grains 

 oj qiiartz of a glassy character had formed. It thus appeared that one of two 

 things must have happened ; either there were hard silicious spots or veins run- 

 ning through the rock, — a common quartzite — from which the softer parts of 

 the cuttings had Ijeen eliminated by some erosive action of the elements, or a 

 general decomposition of the large flat surface of the rock had occurred, followed 

 by a slow atomic deposition of silex in the cuttings of the inscriptions, facilitated 

 and hastened perhaps by the salt spray of the tide water near by, as it was occa- 

 sionally blown upon it by the westerly winds. The ditticult problem was thus sug- 

 gested as to how many centuries would be reijuiied in oider to produce the effect 

 described. 



