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254 JOURNEY OF MAUPERTUIS.
being able to find it, and I began to repent me of having undertaken fo fatiguing a
voyage upon fuch fufpicious information, when after a long fearch it was difcovered : I
caufed part of the {now to be removed, and lighted a great fire for the purpofe of melt-
ing the remainder, in order that we might examine this pretended wonder.
It is a {tone of which a part of irregular form advances out of the earth to the height
of a foot anda half, and is about three feet broad: one of its faces is tolerably even,
and form a furface not altogether vertical, but which makes an acute angle with the
horizon. On this face are two very ftraight lines of charatters, rather more than an
inch long, and which are cut tolerably deep into the ftone, like notches made by the
ftroke of an axe in wood, or a chifel, being broad at the furface, and ending at the bot-
tom with an acute angle.
At the bottom, and out of the two lines, are fome larger characters ; in fpite of all the
figns which thefe characters fhew of having been engraved with iron, I dare not ven-
ture to affirm whether they be the work of man, or a {port of nature,
I leave to them who have made a longer ftudy than myfelf of ancient monuments, or
who may be more bold than me, to decide this queftion. If the refemblance of feveral
of thefe characters, and even of many which fucceed each other, appear to difcounte-
nance their being letters, I fhould not therefore conclude that fuch characters were
without fignification. If we mark one, eleven, one hundred and eleven, &c. in Arabic
figures, it will readily be feen what different meaning may be made by the addition of a
fimilar character.
The moft ancient infcriptions of China are compofed of no more than two characters,
and one cannot doubt of thefe being the work of man, or of their containing a meaning
fhould they be no other, as fome with much apparent reafon imagine, than arithmetical
works. If the tradition of the country be confulted, all the Laplanders affure us that they
are characters of great antiquity, containing valuable fecrets ; but what can one believe
in regard to antiquity from thofe people who even do not know their own age, and who
for the greater part are ignorant who were their mothers.
M. Brunniers, their rector, fpeaks of this monument, in a diflertation that he has
caufed to be printed upon the town of Torneo and the neighbouring country : he looks
upon it to be a Runic infcription, and relates that there were formerly three crowns on
it, effaced now by time. But M. Celfius, very well acquainted with the Runic, could
not read thefe chara¢ters, and found them to differ from all the infcriptions fubfifting
in Sweden ; and as for the crowns, if there ever were any, time has effaced them in
fuch a manner that no veftige of them remains.
The {tone on which thefe lines are engraved is compofed of different beds ; the cha-
racters are written on a fpecies of flint, while the reft, and above all between the two
lines, feems to be of a {tone more foft and foliated.
However it may be, M. Celfius and myfelf copied feparately, and with care, all that
we could difcern,
FEMULOINM Lap PHOS
WNW FYYY SAAMI AY
ima eee
Should
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