to the elaborate scorings on the rocks forming the great chambers at Newgrange, Dowth, and Loughcrew, Co. Meath, to which we shall refer in a subsequent chapter. In these ‘Ireland,’ as Colonel Wood-Martin says, ‘possesses a collection of this species of prehistoric ornamentation which, in singularity, number, and quaintness of design, is approached in point of interest only by some of the great stone chambers of the district of Morbihan.’ The late Dr. Graves, Bishop of Limerick, in the publications of the Royal Irish Academy, appears to have been the first to draw attention to sculpturings of this class found in Ireland. Subsequently the subject was taken up by inquirers, in various parts of the world, who found in their own countries kindred rock carvings. In Ireland the groups of designs found upon the surface of our undisturbed rocks exhibit in many instances characteristics almost, if not entirely, peculiar to themselves. For instance, the incomplete concentric circles with a central cup, from which extends a straight or slightly curved stroke, called ‘the channel,’ through and sometimes beyond the outermost gap in the curved lines, are absent from the varied figurings found in the great sepulchral chambers. Again, the spirals of the stone sepulchres are, as far as we are aware, invariably absent in the array of designs found upon the undisturbed or natural rock. This circumstance was not left unobserved by Dr. Graves when describing his discoveries in Kerry. But upon one small stone in the neighbourhood of Tullakeel, near Sneem, he found a rude carving of a short portion of a spiral. This stone lay set in a fence; it may have belonged to some tomb of which no other relic is known to remain, so that little argument can be based on the character of its scribing. Although antiquaries are not yet in a position to pronounce authoritatively on the precise significance of our rock markings, a glance at some early speculations as to their nature may not here be out of place. It has been suggested that the circular markings were intended to represent shields. ‘This notion,’ says Dr. Graves, ‘seems inconsistent with the fact that the same stone presents so many circular symbols of different sizes, varying from the small shallow cup of an inch or two in diameter to the group of concentric circles two feet across. It also seems probable that, as shields in general used to bear distinctive devices, these would appear in the inscriptions; but the inscribed circles exhibit no such variety as might have been expected on this hypothesis. Again, if the circles represented shields, what could be meant by the openings in the circumference of so many of them? Lastly, what connection could there be between the idea of shields and the long lines appearing in the Staigue monument, or the short ones on that of Ballynasare? Another idea was that these figures were designed to represent astronomical phenomena.’ For several reasons he rejected