MALLERY. ] IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 171 
scriptions of Easter island are no more a sealed text. They can easily be read after 
a little training. Their language is Polynesian, and I can say that the vocabulary 
of the Samoan dialect has proved very useful to me for the purpose. 
SECTION 3. 
EUROPE. 
In the more settled and civilized parts of Europe petroglyphs are now 
rarely found. This is, perhaps, accounted for in part by the many oe- 
casions for use of the inseribed rocks or by their demolition during the 
long period after the glyphs upon them had ceased to have their orig- 
inal interest and significance and before their value as now understood 
had become recognized. Yet from time to time such glyphs have been 
noticed, and they have been copied and described in publications. 
But few of the petroglyphs in the civilized portions of Europe not 
familiar by publication have that kind of interest which requires their 
reproduction in the present paper. It may be sufficient to state in gen- 
eral terms that Europe is no exception to the rest of the world in the 
presence of petroglyphs. 
A number of these extant in the British islands and in the Seandi- 
navian peninsula, besides the few examples presented in this chapter, 
are described and illustrated in other parts of this work, and brief ac- 
counts of others recently noted in France, Spain, and Italy are also 
furnished. 
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
Nearly all of the petroglyphs found in the British islands, accounts 
of which have been published, belong to the class of cup sculptures 
discussed in Chapter v, infra, but several inscriptions showing charac- 
ters not limited to that category are mentioned in ‘Archaic Rock In 
scriptions,” (a) from which the following condensed extract referring to 
cairn in county Meath, Ireland, is taken: 
The ornamentation may be thus deseribed: Small circles, with or without a cen- 
tral dot; two or many more concentric circles; a small cirele with a central dot, 
surrounded by a spiral line; the single spiral; the double spiral, or two spirals 
starting from different centers; rows of small lozenges or ovals; stars of six to thir- 
teen rays; wheels of nine rays; flower ornaments, sometimes inclosed in a circle or 
wide oval; wave-like lines; groups of lunette-shaped lines; pothooks; small squares 
attached to each other side by side, so as to form a reticulated pattern; smallattached 
concentric circles; large and small hollows; a cup hollow surrounded by one or more 
circles; lozenges crossed from angle to angle (these and the squares produced by scrap- 
ings); an ornament like the spine of a fish with ribs attached, or the fiber system of 
some leaf; short equiarmed crosses, starting sometimes from a dot and small circle; a 
circle with rays round it, and the whole contained in a circle; a series of compressed 
semicircles like the letters ;) 9 9 inverted; vertical lines far apart, with ribs sloping 
downwards from them like twigs; an ornament like the fiber system of a broad leaf, 
with the stem attached; rude concentric circles with short rays extending from part 
of the outer one; an ornament very like the simple Greek fret, with dots in the 
