132 Mr. Riddells Differtation upon 
Mr. Gordon, in his Itinerarium Septentrionale— 
Mr. Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, and the 
Rev. Mr. Cordiner, have given to the world 
prints, accompanied with deferiptions of many of thefe 
monuments, in their refpective elegant and ufeful 
publications. Captain Grofe and Mr. de Cardonnel 
have it in their power to add confiderably to 
thefe monuments already publifhed. 
They appear to have been the work of the 
Scotch Norwegians. and Danes, perhaps from the 
ninth and tenth centuries to the time of David Ift. 
when the general ufe of letters over all Scotland; 
rendered laboured fculptures of this kind unnecef- 
fary. Several of them bear undoubted marks of 
their being erected by Chriftians—others I believe 
to have been the work of Pagans, 
In Dumfries-thire are the remains of fome 
of thefe very ancient Monuments. ‘The one in 
Ruthwell church-yard has been publifhed by the 
Antiquarian Society of London, with very great. 
accuracy and elegance, from a drawing of Adam 
de Cardonnel, Efq. and the one I mean to de- 
fcribe has been delineated with the utmoft fidelity 
by the accurate pencil of my learned friend Francis 
Grofe, Efg. F.A.S. 
This very ancient obelifk ftands upon the banks 
of the river Nith, near the village of Thornhill, 
in Nithfdale, a diftri@ of the fhire of Dumfries— 
Mr, Maitland is the only Scottifh hiftorian I can 
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