144 J- Cockburn — Hrematite drawings. [Sept., 



made a thousand years ago. As to Mr. Cockburn's other argument 

 from the extinction of certain animals represented in the drawings, that 

 too need prove no great antiquity, as in the case of the Rhinoceros, for 

 example, it had been shown that it existed down to almost our own 

 times. The only point that, so far as he could see, might prove decisive 

 as to the question of the age of the drawings, was that of the alleged 

 inscriptions. He had not had any opportunity of seeing them, and 

 was therefore unable to express any opinion regarding them. He did not 

 mean to assert that the drawings were modern ; he merely meant to say, 

 that at present there was not sufficient evidence before them, to express 

 any opinion as to the age of the drawings one way or the other. At 

 the same time he was very glad that this further information had been 

 received from Mr. Cockburn. His first paper had not been a very lucid 

 one, and he remembered that, at the time it was read, the members present 

 did not seem quite to understand what Mr. Cockburn's positions and 

 arguments were. The letter just received from him put his case very 

 clearly, and it would now be possible to investigate the arguments put 

 forth, and thus perhaps to settle the question of the age of the drawings. 

 Mr. Oldham thanked Dr. Hoernle for his simile of the pice, for 

 though its metal might have lasted one thousand years or more, yet the 

 device stamped upon it would betray its age. In the drawings sent by Mr. 

 Cockburn there were represented with remarkable fidelity animals now 

 extinct, and these animals were hunted by men who used weapons of a 

 type which shewed that they must have been made of wood or stone and 

 not of metal. He could not agree with the opinion that the drawings 

 were modern, they were not such as would be drawn by children, but 

 bore on their face the stamp of having been made by men who were 

 thoroughly familiar with what they drew. As far as he could under- 

 stand, Mr. Cockburn's ground in his present paper was very different to 

 that which he had originally taken up. Now he wished to attribute a 

 hoary antiquity to the drawings : then he seemed more anxious to prove 

 that animals now extinct in the neighbourhood had at no very distant 

 time abounded, and had been hunted by men whose civilization and 

 culture — if such words could be used — were very different from that 

 shewn by the existing inhabitants. Of the two, the latter would in- 

 dubitably be the more interesting result if proved. 



Dr. Hoernle remarked, in reply to Mr. Oldham's observation, that, 

 of course, a great deal depended on the device of a coin. But that was 

 precisely the point which, with regard to the drawings in question, he 

 considered unsettled. The drawings were admittedly of a rough kind, 

 and he doubted,- whether it was safe to determine such a minute point, 

 as the material of which the weapons were made, from the rough indica- 



