344 On the Incised Rocks at Moriuick. 



direct route to inspect the incised figures on rocks overhanging 

 the Coquet, a short way below the mill, which had recently been 

 discovered by Mr Middleton Dand. These are different from any 

 of those so well and elaborately described by our late Secretary, 

 Mr Tate, and others, as occurring on the rocks at Old Bewick, 

 Doddington, Eouting Linn, and other places in Northumberland. 

 Those already recorded occur generally on the surface of sand- 

 stone rocks, cropping up on hills or other high ground ; these 

 are on the face of a sandstone cliff rising perpendicularly from 

 the bed of the Coquet, a very short way above the level of the 

 sea. The most typical of the forms are composed of concentric 

 circles with a radial groove passing from the centre to the 

 circumference or beyond it. In these now under observation, 

 about six in number, there is no radial groove, but the figure 

 in the most distinct is of a spiral form, somewhat resembling 

 those figured by Mr Tate in his paper published in 1864, from 

 Capt. Carr, E.E., as occuring on rock temples at Malta ; with 

 this remarkable difference, however, that the latter were in 

 relief, those on the Coquet, like all others in Northumberland, 

 incised. The first inscription seen by Mr Dand from a boat on 

 the river is of a different character from any of the others, the 

 outer circle being composed of a number of dots or pits, at per- 

 haps two inches distance from each other, in this somewhat 

 resembling an inscription discovererl by Mr Tate at Jedburgh, 

 but not in situ, and shown in Plate xi. Fig. 6 of the illustrations 

 to his paper. The entire diameter appeared from the boat, from 

 which the inspection was made by small detachments of our 

 party at a time, to be about a foot, and was apparently the 

 largest observed ; it faced the river ; others were on a different 

 aspect of the rock, facing nearly at right angles to the one first 

 observed. One of our members noticed that two of the spiral 

 figures, close to each other, were in fact continuous, the line 

 being carried from one to the other. The inscriptions are from 

 about ten to fifteen feet above the present level of the river, but 

 at the remote period at which they were doubtless executed the 

 channel of the river would be at a much higher elevation'^." 



The distance of the incised rock from the village of Warkworth 

 including the windings of the river is 2| miles ; and there is 

 little more than a mile farther to the present mouth of the river. 



♦Hist, of the Ber. Nafc. Club, viii., pp. 212-213. 



