214 THE FLETCHER STONE — WEBSTER. 



without hands. Of course there are many conceivable explana- 

 tions for the occurrence of such a thing, all more or less unsatis- 

 factory. The least unlikely seems to me to be — that the 

 inscription was cut either by somebody merely for his own 

 amusement ; or by some mischievous fellow who wished it to 

 pass for the work of an ancient or foreign people. This is not a 

 satisfactory conclusion — it was going to a great deal of trouble 

 to cut this inscription simply for amusement ; and if it is an 

 intentional fraud why was it not made so that some meaning 

 could be taken from it ? If, for instance, it was meant to pass 

 for Runes — of course it could not have been at that date, when it 

 was unknow^n that the Northmen were evar in America — the 

 fabricator would have taken pains to make good Runes, as in the 

 fictitious inscription found on the Potomac in 1867, where the 

 characters were copied from genuine Greenland inscriptions. But, 

 unsatisfactory and incapable of strict proof as it is, I believe this 

 explanation must be accepted as the most probable. 



