make, as to the proper
mode of investigating the classes of our larger archaeological subjects,
hold equally true also of those other classes of antiquities of a
lighter and more portable type, which we have collected in our museums;
such, for instance, as the ancient domestic tools, instruments, personal
ornaments, weapons, etc., of stone, flint, bone, bronze, iron, silver,
and gold, which our ancestors used; the clay and bronze vessels which
they employed in cooking and carrying their food; the handmills with
which they ground their corn; the whorls and distaffs with which they
span, and the stuff and garments spun by them, etc. etc. It is only by
collecting, combining, and comparing all the individual instances of
each antiquarian object of this kind--all ascertainable specimens, for
example, of our Scottish stone celts and knives; all ascertainable
specimens of our clay vessels; of our leaf-shaped swords; of our
metallic armlets; of our grain rubbers and stone-querns, etc. etc.--and
by tracing the history of similar objects in other allied countries,
that we will read aright the tales which these relics--when once
properly interrogated--are capable of telling us of the doings, the
habits, and the thoughts of our distant predecessors.

It is on this same broad and great ground--of the indispensable
necessity of a large and perfect collection of individual specimens of
all kinds of antiquities for safe, sure, and successful deduction--that
we plead for the accumulation of such objects in our own or in other
public antiquarian collections. And in thus pleading with the Scottish
public for the augmentation and enrichment of our Museum, by donations
of all kinds, however slight and trivial they may seem to the donors, we
plead for what is not any longer the property of this Society, but what
is now the property of the nation. The Museum has been gifted over by
the Society of Antiquaries to the Government--it now belongs, not to us,
but to Scotland--and we unhesitatingly call upon every true-hearted
Scotsman to contribute, whenever it is in his power, to the extension of
this Museum, as the best record and collection of the ancient
archaeological and historical memorials of our native land. We call for
such a central general ingathering and repository of Scottish
antiquities for another reason. Single specimens and examples of
archaeological relics are, in the hands of a private individual,
generally nought but mere matt