146 



the very ancient people of Minorca, mentions several still to be found 

 there, and commonly called " altars of the Gentiles." 



The rocking stones, which appear to have been used for divination, 

 are also to be met Math in Ireland, and are an additional evidence of 

 the Phoenician origin of the Irish, being identically the same as the 

 Bostylia, the animated stones (" XiOovg snifjvxovQy") of the Phoeni- 

 cians mentioned by Sanchoniathon,* and described by Damascius as 

 moving or rocking in the air. " Et^or tov t>aiTv\ov dia tov aspog 

 Kivoviievop,"'f and by Isidore, " sivai riva daifiova tov kivovvtci 

 avTov,"-f and by Photius also, "Kara tt)v UXiovnoXiv llvpiag, sig 

 opog TO TOV Ai&avov ttjv AcrKXrjniadrjv aveXOeiv (l>r]<Ti, koi iSeiv 

 iroXXa T(i)v Xt-yofisviav TiaiTovXiiav tj BatrvXwj/, tzbqi (ov i^ivpca Tspa- 

 ToXoyei.-f- The learned Bochart derives the Boetylia from the stone 

 which Jacob set up as a pillar and called Bethel ;;]: and Maurice, in his 

 Indian Antiquities, is of the same opinion. Very few of these remains 

 can now be found on their poise ; the author of this Essay has, how- 

 ver, seen one which still in its unfrequented solitude justifies its com- 

 mon appellation of " the shaking rock ;" it is so curiously balanced 

 that a child can shake it, and from the powerful reaction of its own 

 weight a hundred persons could possibly effect no more. An attempt 

 was made by a large body of men, with crows and other implements, 

 to dislodge it from its position, and hurl it down into the valley over 

 which it impends. The experiment has broken off a great splinter of 

 this huge memorial, but it still retains the poise. It stands about 

 three miles off the road from Bannada to Ballina, on the edge of 

 that group of eminences known by the name of Mass Hill, from hav- 



* Ap Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. 1. c. 10. f Cited by Bochart, Sacr. Geog. lib. 2. c. 2. 

 J Gen. c. 28. v. 18. 



