SOME NOTES ON ARBOR LOW, 103 
monuments, there is some account of Arbor Low, but nothing 
original or much worth quoting. * 
Arbor Low is happily scheduled in the Ancient Monument Act 
of last session, and the nation is now responsible for its due pre-_ 
servation. A great debt of gratitude is due from all antiquaries 
to the quiet perseverance of Sir John Lubbock with this measure, 
a persistence that at last overcame the crass prejudice of the 
selfish and wanton. 
As I am about, as briefly and concisely as I can, to set my 
own views before you about this stone circle, and its probable 
intention and age, and that in more positive terms than have 
been used by men so much more able than myself, as Sir John 
Lubbock, I wish first to state that I am doing so at the unsought 
request of our Society, and in supposed default of any one here 
to-day of better qualifications. Ecclesiology has for some time 
been my chief hobby, but in speaking to you of Arbor Low I am 
returning to an old love. In past years I have given a good deal 
of close attention and time to the consideration of our Rude 
Stone Monuments, not only in England, but also those famous 
ones at Carnac and Lockmariaker, as well as many less known 
ones in Brittany and in the south of France. When the British 
Association were at Sheffield, in 1879, I was invited to choose the 
Derbyshire excursion on which to address them, and originally 
selected Arbor Low, but on hearing that the services of Sir John 
Lubbock might be secured, I was the first to suggest that it would 
be right to invite him. The views, therefore, that I put forth are 
the same that I should have had the temerity to lay before that 
august Association. And I do so chiefly asa disciple of Mr. 
Ferguson’s, whose suggestions have never yet been seriously 
contradicted. 
Here, then, we are standing in a circle of some thirty or forty 
_ stones, originally, in all probability, standing upright and perhaps 
in pairs. The comparatively imposing position that it presents 
from a distance is owing to this circle being placed on an 
“Our Ancient Monuments and the Land around them, pp. 14—16. 
