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ON SOME GREYWETHERS AT GRAYS 

 THURROCK, ESSEX. 



By T. V. HOLMES, F.G.S., F.Anthrop.Inst., Vice-President, E.F.C. 



{With Plate VIII.) 

 • [Read November 28///, 1003.] 



THE massive blocks of silicious sandstone known as Grey- 

 wethers or Sarsen stones, the remains of Tertiary beds 

 of more than one geological horizon, are found irregularly 

 •scattered over various parts of the London Tertiary Basin, from 

 Berkshire and Wiltshire to Kent and Essex. Being usually 

 noticeable as masses of hard stone lying on the surface of rocks 

 ■of various ages from the Chalk upwards, in districts where there 

 is scarcely any building stone, it is not surprising to find that in 

 primitive times these blocks were used in the construction of rude 

 stone monuments like Kit's Coty, near Maidstone, Stonehenge 

 and Avebury. At a somewhat later period the name Sarsen 

 (Saracen) stones implies a popular belief in their diabolical, or at 

 least pagan, origin, use or distribution. For a thousand years 

 ago the words pagan, or heathen, and diabolical meant to the 

 mass of people much the same thing. Indeed in the well-known 

 lines of Burns, written towards the end of the eighteenth century, 

 we get the then popular identification of the devil with the 

 author of the best-known form of heathenism thus pithily 

 expressed : — 



*' The De'il cam fiddling thro' the toun, 

 And danc'd awa' wi' the Exciseman; 

 And ilka wife cries, Auld Mahoun, 

 I wish you luck of the prize, man ! " 



The name Greywethers, on the other hand, simply notes the 

 resemblance of these blocks to a flock of sheep, when they are 

 numerous and close together, and are seen from some distance. 



Where they are abundant they have been prized as yielding 

 very hard and durable building-stone for structures of much 

 later date than Stonehenge or Avebury ; Windsor Castle, for 

 instance, being largely built of the material they afford^ Thus 

 where numerous on the surface of a district, they tend to 

 ■disappear in proportion to the rate of progress in agriculture and 

 building there, and to remain undisturbed and undestroyed only 

 in wild uncultivated spots. As they are the sole remains of 



I Whitaker, Geology o/the London Basin p. 390, Lond. 1872. 



