_Glasgow Herald_, adducing the
Australian _churinga nanja_ as parallel to Mr. Donnelly's inscribed
stones, and thus my share in the controversy began. What Dr. Munro and I
then wrote may be passed over in this place.

VI--DUMBUCK

It was in July 1898, that Mr. Donnelly, who had been prospecting during
two years for antiquities in the Clyde estuary, found at low tide,
certain wooden stumps, projecting out of the mud at low water. On August
16, 1898, Dr. Munro, with Mr. Donnelly, inspected these stumps, "before
excavations were made." {25a} It is not easy to describe concisely the
results of their inspection, and of the excavations which followed. "So
far the facts" (of the site, not of the alleged relics), "though highly
interesting as evidence of the hand of man in the early navigation of the
Clyde basin present nothing very remarkable or important," says Dr.
Munro. {25b}

I shall here quote Dr. Munro's descriptions of what he himself observed
at two visits, of August 16, October 12, 1898, to Dumbuck. For the
present I omit some speculative passages as to the original purpose of
the structure.

"The so-called Dumbuck 'crannog,' that being the most convenient name
under which to describe the submarine wooden structures lately
discovered by Mr. W. A. Donnelly in the estuary of the Clyde, lies
about a mile to the east of the rock of Dumbarton, and about 250 yards
within high-water mark. At every tide its site is covered with water
to a depth of three to eight feet, but at low tide it is left high and
dry for a few hours, so that it was only during these tidal intervals
that the excavations could be conducted.

On the occasion of my first visit to Dumbuck, before excavations were
begun, Mr. Donnelly and I counted twenty-seven piles of oak, some 5 or
8 inches in diameter, cropping up for a few inches through the mud, in
the form of a circle 56 feet in diameter. The area thus enclosed was
occupied with the trunks of small trees laid horizontally close to
each other and directed towards the centre, and so superficial that
portions of them were exposed above the surrounding mud, but all
hollows and interstices were levelled up with sand or mud. The tops
of the piles which projected above the surface of the log-pavement
were considerably worn by the continuous action of the muddy waters
during the ebb and flow of the tides, a fact which suggested the