87 SOME EARLY FORMS OF ART. 
bushes. lt is believed the figures were done many centuries ago, 
and that the authors of these spirited jokes were probably only 
shepherds and herdsmen who wished to while away their idle hours.” 
In 1871 a Monsieur Foderé went to see them, and described 
them as the work of Carthaginians or Hannibal’s soldiers. 
In 1868 Mr. Moggridge read a paper on these rocks at a 
Norwich Congress, and said they were hieroglyphics, if any meaning 
at all was to be attributed to them. 
In 1878 a French visitor suggested they were cut by a super- 
stitious people, who adored a terrible divinity supposéd to reside on 
the top of Monte Lego. 
In 1884 another visitor ridiculed this idea, and declared the 
figures were made by shepherds as a distraction in hours of repose. 
In 1897-8 two Englishmen (one of them a personal friend of 
mine) spent several weeks in the district, and made 538 rubbings 
and 100 photographs. ‘They carried away a piece of stone witha 
horned figure on it, and gave it to the British Museum. 
Now as to the Geologieal formation. The rock is chloritic 
schist, of a grey substance, turning to a red ochreous tinge where 
exposed, The ice has smoothed and polished the surface, and the 
striated scratches and lines made by the action of the glacier are 
still fresh and clear. You can see them on the specimen in the 
British Museum. The rocks are covered with snow except for two 
months. When the sun is hot and the air dry, no rain trickles 
down them, no moisture frets them away. The snow when it falls 
forms a winding sheet and a preservative. We owe to the happy 
accident of climate the continued existence of the designs. 
The figures are produced by repeated blows of a blunt implement, 
stone or flint, and by a series of successive punches The depth of 
the engraving is uniform. The red surface is chipped away, and 
