BY HUGH MILLEE. 351 



of its capital ; or possibly, they may have been taken from 

 the rings of fine stratification that often surround the pot- 

 holes themselves, as the leaves of a book would surround a 

 hole gouged in it. On any supposition it is perfectly expli- 

 cable that the circles should have come to be identified with 

 the cups ; the accessory, as in the history of emblems generally, 

 becoming blended with the original. It would not be unpa- 

 ralleled in the history of art, for instance, that the caprice 

 of the inscribers should have carried them so far beyond the 

 simple cup from which they started, as to omit it altogether, 

 which has sometimes been done. I have already remarked that 

 the concentric lines round a cup often stop short where the duct 

 should be, even in its absence, as if tacitly respecting its posi- 

 tion ; in like manner the circle without the cup may be taken as 

 implying its presence. 



But it will probably be granted that even admitting full sig- 

 nificance for the resemblance I have traced between incised cups 

 and natural pot-holes, it would be as vain to attempt separate ex- 

 planations of all the varieties as to try to predict or explain the 

 vagaries of a savage's imagination.*' 



6. Snail-Borings in Limestone. — In the early days of contro- 

 versy" as to a possibly marine origin for escarpments, we hear 

 of the presence upon rock-surfaces of the borings of lithodomous 

 shells. The late Dr. Buckland had before then described short 

 sac-like perforations in limestone, which he often found tenanted 



* My friend Mr. Howse, the valued Secretary of this Club, has recently broaclicd the 

 ingenious yicw that these encircled cups, etc., of the rock surfaces of Northumberland arc 

 not artificial at all, but the work of a concentrically-growing lichen, when the climate was 

 moister. ("Newcastle Daily Journal," July '2Gth, 1871).) The disintegrating power of 

 lichens is well known ; but it still remains to be pointed out that any lichens of the pre- 

 sent day make even faint impressions of these particular designs. I iiavo not examined 

 the originals of the drawings given by the late George Tate and by Dr. Bruce, but 1 havo 

 carefully gone through a fine series of similar sculptures in the Museum of Antiquities at 

 Edinburgh. That these, at least, are artificial, I a\n (luito satisfied ; and in the nunlaturo 

 cups and circles upon combs of bono, etc., preserved in this Museum, I tldnk there is con- 

 clusive evidence that the larger cups, circles, and spirals, found, like tiiem, in the "riots' 

 houses," are what antitjuarles have taken them to bo. See llio Catalogue, under the head 

 of "Sculptured Stones," and "Collodions from ' IMctish Towers,' " etc., in the llhistralionN 

 of which I think any one interested in the matter will lind sulhcient to satisfy lum. This 

 Catalogue is the best sixpenny worth of archoBology ho is likely to got. See Miscoilnnca, 

 infru. 



