xvi. nos. 13, 14). Eleven of the twelve sandstone fragments
which make up the group were fractured in such a manner as to suggest
that the line of fracture had intersected the original ornamentation,
and had thus detached a portion of it. If this be so, there must have
been originally at least two or three other portions which, if found,
would fit along the margin of each of the extant portions, just as the
fragments of a broken urn come together. Yet among these decorated
stones not one single bit fits another, nor is any of the designs the
counterpart of another. If we suppose that these decorated stones are
portions of larger tablets on which the designs were completed, then
either they were broken before being introduced into the debris of the
fort, or the designs were intentionally executed in an incomplete
state, just as they are now to be seen on the existing natural
splinters of stone. The supposition that the occupiers of the fort
possessed the original tablets, and that they had been smashed on the
premises, is excluded by the significant fact that only one fragment
of each tablet has been discovered. For, in the breaking up of such
tablets, it would be inconceivable, according to the law of chances,
that one portion, and only one, of each different specimen would
remain while all the others had disappeared. On the other hand, the
hypothesis that the occupiers of the fort carved these designs on the
rough and unprepared splinters of stone in the precise manner they now
come before us, seems to me to involve premeditated deception, for it
is difficult to believe that such uncompleted designs could have any
other finality of purpose.

Looking at these geometrical figures from the point of technique, they
do not make a favourable impression in support of their genuineness.
The so-called cup-marks consist of punctures of two or three different
sizes, so many corresponding to one size and so many to another. The
stiffness of the lines and circles reminds one more of ruler and
compass than of the freehand work of prehistoric artists. The
patterns are unprecedented for their strange combinations of art
elements. For example, no. 9, plate xvi., looks as if it were a
design for some modern machinery. The main ornament on another
fragment of sandstone (no. 12), consisting of a cross and circle
composed of