1891.] Cup-Stones Near Old Fort Ransom. 455 
CUP-STONES NEAR OLD FORT RANSOM, N. D. 
BY T. H. LEWIS. 
PPARENTLY the earliest mention of cup-stones, in print, 
was in 1751, ina historical work on the Province of Branden- 
burg, by J. C. Bekmann. The author speaks of certain boulders 
there which have on them apfchensteine, or little-bowl-stones, as 
he terms them. Next, in 1773, there was found at Lynsfort, in + 
North Britain, a druidical altar full of “rock basons,” which was 
pictured in Camden’s Britannia, 1789. From that time on, at 
intervals, first incidentally, then by purposed search, interesting 
discoveries were made until, so far as the rings were concerned, 
almost every country on the earth was represented. As regards 
the cups, their distribution has not yet proved to be nearly so 
widespread. Still they have been found in the British Isles, 
France, Switzerland, Bohemia, Austria, Northern Germany, the 
Danish Islands, and Sweden; but these are all the European 
countries known to possess them, apparently, according to the 
authorities. Flitting now eastward over vast kingdoms we meet 
with them again in far-off India. Here, in 1867; Mr. Rivett- 
Carnac found cup-cuttings upon the stones of the cycloliths of 
Nagpoor, and, shortly after, upon rocks 7 situ of the mountains 
of Kumaon, where, in one place, he found them to the number 
of more than two hundred, arranged in groups of apparently 
parallel rows. In the Kumaon region he also found ring sculp- 
turing, which very much resembled that which is seen in Europe. 
Outside of these named countries, and North America to be 
mentioned further on, the world isa blank as regards cup-cuttings 
on rocks, so far as our present knowledge goes, or at least to the 
extent that I have been able to find recorded information of the 
same, 
Although met with and described nearly a century and a half 
ago, as hereinbefore related, it is only within the last forty-five 
years that incised cups on rocks and stones have been particularly 
