STONEHENGE — STEVENS 459 



work is tlie same, so that the arrangement of these four points is 

 symmetrical. For this reason they are sometimes called the "Four 

 Stations." But though they are thus placed, so that both stones and 

 earthworks are in line with the center of the circle, the view between 

 them is completely blocked by the rest of the monument. To obtain 

 that line, therefore, it would seem that these four stations must have 

 been set out before the circle was erected, and therefore at an earlier 

 date. 



Colonel Hawley's excavations have shed further light upon this 

 question, for on investigating the "South Barrow" he discovered it 

 to be a circular ditch surrounding a hole which had formerly held 

 a stone. 



With regard to the corresponding "North Barrow," Colt Hoare 

 mentions that there was a circular ditch also, so that it is more than 

 likely that there was also a stone. 



Consequently the "Four Stations" originally were four stones, set 

 up with considerable accuracy, the lines joining them meeting at an 

 angle of 45 degrees. 



Sir Norman Lockyer has recorded that these stones seen from the 

 center of the circle would indicate sunset and sunrise on May 6 and 

 November 8, February 2 and August 5. 



THE SLAUGHTER STONE 



This name is apt to be misleading and to suggest rather gruesome 

 rites and ceremonies, of which there is no evidence. The name was 

 given to it by Stukeley in the seventeenth century. It is almost 

 buried in a depression in the ground and lies just inside the Ditch, 

 a little to the south of the axis of the monument. 



Opposite to this stone, at the same distance from the center, a 

 large hole was uncovered, which contained a Sarsen packing block, 

 which suggests that there was a second stone which has disappeared. 

 In 1655 Inigo Jones mentioned a pair of standing stones, of which he 

 gives the dimensions, which correspond to those of the existing 

 Slaughter Stone. So that there is every reason to suppose that two 

 stones stood, one on either side of the axis, on the northeast, and that 

 possibly there may have been a lintel stone froming a complete 

 Trilithon. 



THE Y AND Z HOLES 



Outside the stone circle are two irregular circles of holes, called the 

 Y and Z holes. Only 15 of each have been excavated, but soundings 

 have revealed the existence of 30 in each circle. They have not been 

 marked on the ground, as have the Aubrey Holes. Each pair of Y 



