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not commanded the unanimous assent of Egyptologists but, as no chronology for 

 Egypt has yet been universally accepted, Sir Norman Lockyer may perhaps be 

 entitled to consider his own as good as any other. 



The observance of the rising sun, whether daily or at special seasons, was, in 

 Sir Norman Lockyer's opinion, propounded to the populace as a religious duty, 

 but was carried on by the priesthoods all over the world for the very practical 

 purpose of ascertaining the exact length of the year, and the recurrence of the 

 proper seasons for sowing, etc., so that all agricultural operations might seem to 

 require their sanction, and receive it — for a consideration. 



When Sir Norman Lockyer returned from Egypt he determined to see how 

 far these ideas found support, at Stonehenge in the first place, and at other 

 rude stone monuments afterwards. Stonehenge has long been thought by many 

 archaeologists to have had some astronomical purpose or connection, and it is 

 well known that the whole structure is set towards the point at which the sun 

 rises at midsummer ; the exact place of the rising of the sun varies in the 

 course of years, though very slightly as compared with that of the rising of 

 the stars, and, having adopted the axis of the avenue of earthen banks which 

 leads north-easterly from the circles as the most satisfactory line of sight, Sir 

 Norman Lockyer decided that Stonehenge was founded between 1900 and 

 1 500 B.C. This date, being deduced from the direction of the earthworks, does 

 not necessarily settle that of the erection of the stone circles, and it is not 

 unlikely that those now remaining may belong to a much later period. At 

 Stonehenge our author saw reason to think that there were references to the 

 sunrisings and settings in May, August, November, and February, all old 

 pagan festivals, and still the Scottish quarter-days ; he finds the same things 

 elsewhere in Britain and in Brittany, and considers the "May-November year" 

 to be older than the "solstitial" year. Our oldest existing remains may indeed 

 belong to a May-November year period, but it would be so difficult to fix the 

 half-quarters before the times of the solstices and equinoxes were settled that 

 the solstitial year must surely have come first somewhere. 



From Stonehenge Sir Norman Lockyer conducts his readers — in many 

 cases " personally " — to Brittany, Cornwall, Dartmoor, Somersetshire, Wales, 

 Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Scotland, as well as to other 

 Wiltshire monuments, and finds everywhere references in the stone circles, lines 

 of stones, 'and dolmens or cromlechs, sometimes to the sunrisings and settings 

 in the " May year," or in the " solstitial year," the observance of which supplanted, 

 he thinks, that of the former, and sometimes to " clock-stars," by which the time 

 could be determined during the night, or to "warning-stars," the rising or setting 

 of which gave notice of the approach of sunrise. 



We have stated Sir Norman Lockyer's propositions at considerable length, 

 because they have been virulently and perhaps not always quite fairly attacked, 

 sometimes by archaeologists who are not astronomers, and sometimes by 

 astronomers who are not archaeologists ; on the other hand, they have been 

 supported by naval surveying officers, who, having studied the monuments 

 carefully, are entitled to rank both as astronomers and archaeologists, and we 

 ourselves see nothing unreasonable in them. 



While, however, we take no exception to the author's general principles, we 

 cannot unhesitatingly accept all his conclusions. In Egypt it was apparently 

 the custom to erect a massive temple to mark the direction of sun or star rising, 

 but in north-western Europe the easier and more economical plan of setting 

 up one or more stones in the desired line was adopted, and it is assumed, 



