That perhaps forces behind the history of this earth have left upon the
rocks of Palestine and England and India and China records that may some
day be deciphered, of their misdirected instructions to certain esoteric
ones--Order of the Freemasons--the Jesuits--
I emphasize the row-formation of cup marks:
Prof. Douglas (_Saturday Review_, Nov. 24, 1883):
"Whatever may have been their motive, the cup-markers showed a decided
liking for arranging their sculpturings in regularly spaced rows."
That cup marks are an archaic form of inscription was first suggested by
Canon Greenwell many years ago. But more specifically adumbratory to our
own expression are the observations of Rivett-Carnac (_Jour. Roy.
Asiatic Soc._, 1903-515):
That the Braille system of raised dots is an inverted arrangement of cup
marks: also that there are strong resemblances to the Morse code. But no
tame and systematized archaeologist can do more than casually point out
resemblances, and merely suggest that strings of cup marks look like
messages, because--China, Switzerland, Algeria, America--if messages
they be, there seems to be no escape from attributing one origin to
them--then, if messages they be, I accept one external origin, to which
the whole surface of this earth was accessible, for them.
Something else that we emphasize:
That rows of cup marks have often been likened to footprints.
But, in this similitude, their unilinear arrangement must be
disregarded--of course often they're mixed up in every way, but
arrangement in single lines is very common. It is odd that they should
so often be likened to footprints: I suppose there are exceptional
cases, but unless it's something that hops on one foot, or a cat going
along a narrow fence-top, I don't think of anything that makes
footprints one directly ahead of another--Cop, in a station house,
walking a chalk line, perhaps.
Upon the Witch's Stone, near Ratho, Scotland, there are twenty-four
cups, varying in size from one and a half to three inches in diameter,
arranged in approximately straight lines. Locally it is explained that
these are tracks of dogs' feet (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland_, 2-4-79).
Similar marks are scattered bewilderingly all around the Witch's
Stone--like a frenzy of telegraphing, or like messages repeating and
repeating, trying to localize differently.
In Inverness-shire, cup marks are called "fairies' footmarks." At
Valna's church, Norway, and St. Peter's, Ambleteuse, there are such
marks, said to be horses' hoofprints. The rocks of Clare, Ireland, are
marked with prints supposed to have been made by a mythical cow
(_Folklore_, 21-184).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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