in the instance of the St. Vigean's stone on which Sir James Simpson read the name of Drosten,[319] ascribing it with very fair certainty to the year 729 A.D., none of the 101 stones illustrated in the splendid volumes of the Spalding Club contains hardly a scrap of alphabetic writing. Throughout they preferred a strange sort of Heraldic symbolism, which still defies the ingenuity of our best antiquaries to interpret. It was a very perverse course to pursue, but while men did so, probably as late as Sueno's time, A.D. 1008,[320] it is needless to ask why men set up rude stones to commemorate events or persons when they could have carved or inscribed them; or why, in fact, as we would insist on doing, they did not avail themselves of all the resources of the art or the learning which they possessed? [Illustration: 97. Cross in Isle of Man, bearing Runic Inscription.] [Illustration: 98. Cross in Isle of Man, bearing Runic Inscription.] The other rude-stone monuments of Scotland are neither numerous nor important. Daniel Wilson enumerates some half-dozen of dolmens as still existing in the lowlands and in parts of Argyllshire, but none of them are important from their size, nor do they present any peculiarities to distinguish them from those of Wales or Ireland; while no tradition has attached itself to any of them in such a manner as to give a hint of their age or purpose. Besides these, there are a number of single stones scattered here and there over the country, but there is nothing to indicate whether they are cat stones or mark boundaries, or merely graves, so that to enumerate them would be as tedious as it would be uninstructive. What little interest may attach to them will be better appreciated when we have examined those of Scandinavia and France, which are more numerous, as well as more easily understood. When, too, we have mastered them in so far as the materials available enable us to do, we shall be able to appreciate the significance of much that has just been enunciated. Meanwhile it may be as well to remark that what we already seem to have gained is a knowledge that a circle-building race came from the north, touching first at the Orkneys, and, passing down through the Hebrides, divided themselves on the north of Ireland--one branch settling on the west coast of that island, the other landing in Cumberland, and penetrating into England in a south-easterly direction.