74 
It is well known that the Buddhist priests were enjoined to spread 
themselves over the world for the propagation of their faith, and 
that they speedily overran, and converted, a large portion of the great 
nations of Asia. As they are proved to have been known in Europe, 
during the second and fifth centuries, it appears probable that the 
may have reached Scotland by means of Phoenician ships. In this 
case they would introduce the dorje ,- — the indispensable symbol of their 
faith, — and would naturally incise the figure of it upon the upright 
stones, possibly erected at an earlier period, as objects of veneration: 
And in such representations, as the priest was not present to com- 
plete the sacred symbolism of the Buddhist faith, by representing 
the third member of the Triad, or organized matter, the result of the 
interaction of the two former members, this was represented by the 
figure of an elephant, or a bird, or the segment of a circle, well- 
known as the cockit -hat-ornament, &c. 
Various instances were given, in which the Buddhists borrowed re- 
ligious ceremonies from the ritual of the Latin Church. A similar 
combination appears to have taken place in Scotland, on the intro- 
duction of Christianity ; with this difference, that there the faith and 
the symbol of the cross eventually prevailed over those of Buddhism. 
For a time, however, the old symbol of the deity, the spectacle- orna- 
ment, or, as it ought in the author’s opinion to be styled, the 
dorje symbol , was retained along with the emblems of Christianity. 
From the similarity to each other, of the figures on the sculptured 
stones of the north-eastern part of Scotland, they appear to have 
been executed by the same Christian community, and that the very 
earliest in that part of the island ; the community, in fact, to which 
Tertullian refers, in the third century, as inhabiting those parts of 
Britain never conquered by the Homans, and which, after gradually 
superseding the more ancient belief, flourished in the great kingdom 
of the Piets. 
2. Notes on the Structure of Amphora, a genus of Diato- 
macese, and the diagnosis of its species. By Dr Walker 
Arnott. 
When Linneeus said that all objects of natural history must have 
a specific name , he did not mean a trivial name (which was not then 
invented), but what is called a short, distinctive character, otherwise 
