It is necessary, after these prefatory remarks, to give an account of the
rise of the Clyde controversy, and I may be pardoned for following the
example of Dr. Munro, who adds, and cannot but add, a pretty copious
narrative of his own share in the discussion. In 1896, the hill fort of
Dunbuie, "about a mile-and-a-half to the east of Dumbarton Castle, and
three miles to the west of the Roman Wall," {12} was discovered by Mr. W.
A. Donnelly: that is to say, Mr. Donnelly suggested that the turf might
conceal something worth excavating, and the work was undertaken, under
his auspices, by the Helensburgh Antiquarian Society.
As Mr. Donnelly's name constantly occurs in the discussion, it may be as
well to state that, by profession, he is an artist,--a painter and
designer in black and white,--and that, while keenly interested in the
pre-historic or proto-historic relics of Clydesdale, he makes no claim to
be regarded as a trained archaeologist, or widely-read student. Thus,
after Mr. Donnelly found a submarine structure at Dumbuck in the estuary
of the Clyde, Dr. Munro writes: "I sent Mr. Donnelly some literature on
crannogs." {13a} So Mr. Donnelly, it appears, had little book lore as to
crannogs. He is, in fact, a field worker in archaeology, rather than an
archaeologist of the study and of books. He is a member of a local
archaeological Society at Helensburgh on the Clyde, and, before he found
the hill fort of Dunbuie, he had discovered an interesting set of "cup
and ring" marked rocks at Auchentorlie, "only a short distance from
Dunbuie." {13b}
Mr. Donnelly's position, then, as regards archaeological research, was,
in 1896-1898, very like that of Dr. Schliemann when he explored Troy.
Like Dr. Schliemann he was no erudite savant, but an enthusiast with an
eye for likely sites. Like Dr. Schliemann he discovered certain objects
hitherto unknown to Science, (at least to Scottish science,) and, like
Dr. Schliemann, he has had to take "the consequences of being found in
such a situation."
It must be added that, again like Dr. Schliemann he was not an excavator
of trained experience. I gather that he kept no minute and hourly-dated
log-book of his explorations, with full details as to the precise
positions of the objects discovered, while, again like Dr. Schliemann, he
had theories of his own, with some of which I do not concur.
Dr. Munro justly insists on "the absolute necessity of correctly
recording the facts and relics brought to light by excavations." {14a} An
excavator should be an engineer, or be accompanied by a specialist who
can assign exact measurements for the position of every object
discovered. Thus Dr. Munro mentions the case of a man who, while digging
a drain in his garden in Scotland, found an adze of jade and a
pre-historic urn. Dr. Munro declares, with another expert, that the jade
adze is "a modern Australian implement," which is the more amazing as I
am not aware that the Australians possess any jade. The point is that
the modern Australian adze was _not_, as falsely reported, in the pre-
historic urn. {14b}
Here I cannot but remark that while Dr. Munro justly regrets the absence
of record as to precise place of certain finds, he is not more hospitable
to other finds of which the precise locality is indicated. Things are
found by Mr. Bruce as he clears out the interior of a canoe, or imbedded
in the dock on the removal of the canoe, {15} or in the "kitchen
midden"--the refuse heap--but Dr. Munro does not esteem the objects more
highly because we have a distinct record as to the precise place of their
finding.