233 



sculptures, the age at which they were carved, and the race of men who 

 carved them. 



Professor Mlsson attributes those found in Scandinavia to Phoenician 

 origin, and considers the circles as symbols of the sun and other hea- 

 venly bodies — a most untenable hypothesis, as there exist no similar 

 carvings among Phoenician remains to connect them with. Further, 

 analogous and identical circles and carvings are found in America and 

 other countries where no Phoenician influence could possibly have 

 reached. Others suggest that they are symbols, or symbolic enumera- 

 tions of families and tribes, or some variety of archaic writing or philo- 

 sophical emblems. 



"We shall, I think, be led to a more just conclusion as to their oriuin 

 if we bring before our mind that man, in his rude, early, and primitive 

 age, bears a great analogy in his actions and thoughts to those of a 

 child. The savage and primitive man has the same fondness for imita- 

 tion, the same love of laborious idleness as the child. A child will 

 pass hours whittling and paring a stick, building a diminutive house or 

 wall, and tracing forms on the turf. The savage will wear away years 

 in carving his war club and polishing his stone adze. These conside- 

 rations lead me to attribute these carvings and sculpture to the laborious 

 idleness of a pastoral people, passing the long and weary day in tending 

 their flecks and herds ; they amused themselves by carving and cutting 

 those various figures of the sun, the moon, or any animals or objects in 

 their neighbourhood, on the rocks near them. For, as Sir James Simp- 

 son remarks, man has been in all ages "a sculpturing and a painting 

 animal." 



These rude outlines by primitive men, in various countries, like the 

 rude attempts at drawing by children, cannot but bear a family resem- 

 blance to one another, their utter absence of art being frequently their 

 chief point of relationship. 



These views may seem absurd, but they have the sanction of a high 

 authority. Humboldt, when noticing the sculptured rocks in South 

 America, considers these figures, " instead of being symbolical, rather 

 as the fruits of the idleness of hunting nations." As some would recog- 

 nize alphabetic characters in these carvings, he observes further (Cor- 

 dilleras, L, 154) : — "We cannot be too careful not to confound what 

 may be the effect of chance or idle amusement with letters or sjdlabic 

 characters." Mr. Trutio relates, that in the southern extremity of 

 Africa, among the Beljuanas, he saw children busy in tracing on a rock 

 with some sharp instrument characters which bore the most perfect re- 

 semblance with the P and the M of the Roman alphabet, notwithstand- 

 ing which these rude tribes were perfectly ignorant of writing. 



Sir James Simpson's note, at page 107 of his work, corroborates this 

 view : — " Three years ago, my friend Dr. Arthur Mitchell saw the her- 

 ring fishermen, in a day of idleness, cutting circles with their knives on 

 the face of the rock without the operators being able to assign any reason 

 for their work, except that others had done it before them." 



