Author Description

Dr. Munro's acute and interesting book, Archaeology and False Antiquities, [6] does not coverthe whole of its amusing subject. False gems, coins, inscriptions, statues, and pictures arescarcely touched upon; the author is concerned chiefly with false objects of the pre-historicand "proto-historic" periods, and with these as bearing on the Clyde controversy of 1896-1905. Out of 292 pages, at least 130 treat directly of that local dispute: others bear on itindirectly.I have taken great interest in this subject since I first heard of it by accident, in the Octoberor November of 1898. As against Dr. Munro, from whose opinions I provisionally dissent, Imay be said to have no locus standi. He is an eminent and experienced archaeologist inmatters of European pre-historic and proto-historic times. Any one is at liberty to say ofme what another celebrated archaeologist, Mr. Charles Hercules Read, said, in a letter to Dr.Munro, on December 7, 1901, about some one else: a person designated as "---," anddescribed as "a merely literary man, who cannot understand that to practised people theantiquities are as readable as print, and a good deal more accurate." [7] But though "merelyliterary," like Mr. "---," I have spent much time in the study of comparative anthropology; ofthe manners, ideas, customs, implements, and sacred objects of uncivilised and peasantpeoples. Mr. "---" may not have done so, whoever he is. Again, as "practised people" oftenvary widely in their estimates of antique objects, or objects professing to be antique, Icannot agree with Mr. Read that "the antiquities" are "as readable as print,"-if by"antiquities" he means antiquities in general. At the British Museum I can show Mr. Readseveral admirable specimens of the art of faking, standing, like the Abomination ofDesolation, where they ought not. It was not by unpractised persons that they werepurchased at the national expense. We are all fallible, even the oldest of us. I conceive Mr.Read, however, to mean the