680 
His Lordship then called upon Mr. Fairless Barber to read 
the first paper. 
ON THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MENHIRS, OR PILLAR STONES. 
BY THE REV. R. J. MAPLETON, M.A., CORRESPONDING 
MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND. 
In walking through a cemetery, or better still, through a 
burying-ground of some ancient church, we are struck with 
the variety of monuments that surviving friends have 
erected to the memory of their dead. The simple headstone, 
as well as the costly mausoleum, tells its tale of affection and 
sorrow. And in every age, as we go backward in time, the 
peculiar feelings of the period are strongly marked upon 
them. At the present time, crosses in various designs, with 
simple inscriptions, have succeeded to the cherubs, and 
skulls, and hour-glasses, and funeral urns, and the long 
catalogue of virtues, that were the fashion of the preceding 
age. And yet these were the ancestors of the sepulchral 
crosses. The idea is the same, although each bears the 
impress of the feelings of its age. And we can go back still 
further to the so-called " Iona-stones " of Scotland, the 
sculptured Runic stones, the village and churchyard crosses. 
But whence did these derive their origin ? The answer that 
it is " natural to place a cross or sculptured stone, as a 
memorial," is no answer at all. Can we not go still further 
back, and trace the custom to a period still nearer to its real 
origin ? 
Few persons who have travelled in the Highlands can 
fail to have been struck with the great " standing stones " 
that rear their hoary heads among the heather, or stand in 
solitary grandeur in the fields — a memorial of ages long 
past: often protected, by a superstitious reverence, from the 
desecration of the ruthless hand of the " improver." It 
seems almost a miracle that they have been preserved. 
