of
inscribed stones, in a site of the usual broch and crannog period, is not
invariably ascribed to forgery, even by the most orthodox archaeologists.
Thus Sir Francis Terry found unheard-of things, not to mention "a number
of thin flat circular discs of various sizes" in his Caithness brochs. In
Wester broch "the most remarkable things found" were three egg-shaped
quartzite pearls "having their surface painted with spots in a blackish
or blackish-brown pigment." He also found a flattish circular disc of
sandstone, inscribed with a duck or other water-fowl, while on one side
was an attempt, apparently, to write runes, on the other an inscription
in unknown cursive characters. There was a boulder of sandstone with
nine cup marks, and there were more painted pebbles, the ornaments now
resembling ordinary cup marks, now taking the shape of a cross, and now
of lines and other patterns, one of which, on an Arunta rock, is of
unknown meaning, among many of known totemic significance.

Dr. Joseph Anderson compares these to "similar pebbles painted with a red
pigment" which M. Piette found in the cavern of Mas d'Azil, of which the
relics are, in part at least, palaeolithic, or "mesolithic," and of
dateless antiquity. In _L'Anthropologie_ (Nov. 1894), Mr. Arthur Bernard
Cook suggests that the pebbles of Mas d'Azil may correspond to the stone
churinga nanja of the Arunta; a few of which appear to be painted, not
incised. I argued, on the contrary, that things of similar appearance,
at Mas d'Azil: in Central Australia: and in Caithness, need not have had
the same meaning and purpose. {95a}

It is only certain that the pebbles of the Caithness brochs are as
absolutely unfamiliar as the inscribed stones of Dumbuck. But nobody
says that the Caithness painted pebbles are forgeries or modern
fabrications. Sauce for the Clyde goose is not sauce for the Caithness
gander. {95b}

The use of painted pebbles and of inscribed stones, may have been merely
_local_.

In Australia the stone churinga are now, since 1904, known to be _local_,
confined to the Arunta "nation," and the Kaitish, with very few sporadic
exceptions in adjacent tribes. {95c}

The purely local range of the inscribed stones in Central Australia,
makes one more anxious for further local research in the Clyde district
and south-west coast.

XXV--MY MISADVENTURE WITH THE CHARM STONE

As Dr. Munro introduces the subject, I may draw another example of the