he unkindly forgets to credit the forger with the same amount of easily
accessible information, when the forger dumps down a decorated slate
spear-head, eleven inches long.

Believe me, this forger was no fool: he knew what he was about, and he
must have laughed when critics said that his slate spear-heads would be
useless. He expected the learned to guess what he was forging; not
practicable weapons, but _armes d'apparat_; survivals of a ceremonial
kind, like Mr. Mackenzie's decorated axe-head of soft stone.

_That_, I think, was our forger's little game; for even if he thought no
more than Dr. Munro seems to do of the theory of "survivals," he knew
that the theory is fashionable. "Nothing like these spear-heads . . .
has hitherto been found in Scotland, so that they cannot be survivals
from a previous state of things in our country," says Dr. Munro. {116a}
The argument implies that there is nothing in the soil of our country of
a nature still undiscovered. This is a large assumption, especially if
Mr. Mackenzie be right about the sacred ceremonial decorated axe-head of
soft stone. The forger, however, knew that elsewhere, if not in
Scotland, there exist useless _armes d'apparat_, and he obviously meant
to fake a few samples. He was misunderstood. I knew what he was doing,
for it seems that "Mr. Lang . . . suggested that the spear-heads were not
meant to be used as weapons, but as 'sacred things.'" {116b} I knew
little; but I did know the sacred boomerang-shaped decorated Arunta
churinga, and later looked up other _armes d'apparat_. {116c}

Apparently I must have "coached" the forger, and told him what kinds of
things to fake. But I protest solemnly that I am innocent! He got up
the subject for himself, and knew more than many of his critics. I had
no more to do with the forger than M. Salomon Reinach had to do with
faking the golden "tiara of Saitaphernes," bought by the Louvre for 8000
pounds. M. Reinack denies the suave suggestion that _he_ was at the
bottom of this imposture. {117a} I also am innocent of instructing the
Clyde forger. He read books, English, French, German, American, Italian,
Portuguese, and Spanish.

From the _Bulletino di Palaetnologia Italiana_, vol. xi. p. 33, 1885,
plate iv., and from Professor Pigorini's article there, he prigged the
idea of a huge stone weapon, of no use, found in a grotto near Verona.
{117b} This object is of flint, shaped like a flint arrow-head; is ten
in