SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE FONT AT WILNE. 189 
as high as his foot is long, we shall have a tier of human subjects 
of the same height as the bird and dragon subjects below. The 
two tiers may thus be fairly supposed to have occupied the same 
length on the pillar, as is the case on the pillar at Masham 
described below, and this will give three feet as the approximate 
height, a very convenient height for the purpose of an “altar” of 
the kind referred to. The diameter of the top of the “altar” 
may be calculated from the known dimensions of the existing 
portion of the pillar as having been from 23 to 24 inches. 
However this may be, there are sculptured pillars of cylindrical 
form which can not have been altars. They have not been suffi- 
ciently considered by archzeologists, if indeed they can be said 
to have been considered at all. The remarkable group of slightly 
tapering cylindrical pillars, collected from roadsides in Cheshire, 
and now placed in the public park at Macclesfield, deserve careful 
attention. They are apparently not inscribed columns, though their 
resemblance to the pillar of Eliseg at Valle Crucis Abbey is very 
striking, and cannot conceivably be accidental. The cylindrical 
surface is plain, but near the top they are bevelled off in triangles 
with curved bases, filled with interlacing bands and with well designed 
trefoils ; in one case there is a remarkably bold example of the key 
pattern. Their function may have been to mark boundaries or 
distances. The very fine but sadly decayed example in the 
churchyard at Wolverhampton is a great puzzle. It stands 12 feet 
high on a pedestal of stones covered with ivy, which forms a very 
unsafe support for the ladder of the investigator. Sixty-four inches 
from the bottom a raised belt of rope is cut on the pillar, from 
which raised bands descend forming five triangles, in each of 
which is a large animal or a bird, about a foot high. The animal 
which has perished least is a nondescript. Immediately above 
the rope band isa remarkable tier of subjects, 19 inches wide, the 
girth of the pillar here being about 86 inches. By means of bars 
crossing one another at about 45°, the belt is divided into five 
diamond-shaped areas, in each of which a large quadruped is 
sculptured, the small triangles above and below the intersection of 
the bars also containing a bird or a beast each. Thus there are in 
