420 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



as there are numerous indications, that among the 

 first migratory tribes, portions, such as the Cimmerii 

 and Cymri, directed their course to the north-west, 

 and mixed, to a great extent, with Finnic and Gaetic 

 nations ; we are desirous of distinguishing them from 

 all others, collectively, as Celto Scythae, or Celto Fin- 

 nic, and more distinctly, by substituting one or the 

 other of the above names. Their probable movement 

 down the Oxus, and passage to the Oural mountains, 

 and thence by Russia, Poland, the Baltic, Scandinavia, 

 and Denmark, into Friesland and Belgium, has already 

 been partially noticed ; and taking the so-called Celtic 

 mode of erecting monuments, altars, and tombs, with 

 huge stones, on the surface of the earth, or hidden in 

 cairns and barrows, as proof of their presence ; we have 

 in more than one place pointed out that they must 

 have been seamen on more than one occasion, have 

 traversed great portions of the South Seas, and left 

 the evidence of their toils on the coasts of China as 

 well as America.* That these massive structures are 

 not the chance work of races of unallied nations, is 

 plain, from the fact, that among nearly one hundred 

 and fifty cromlechs, logging stones, masses of unwrought 

 rock, cleared away to constitute them into colossal 

 idols, circles of stones, parallellitha of linear or curve- 

 linear ranges of upright stones, single maen stones, 

 mysterious caves for worship or initiation, shealings, 



* In the atlas of Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard, there are 

 some delineations of these seeming Celtic structures in the 

 South Seas not before noticed. 



