212 Excavations at Avebury. 
We now left the Cove, and to the S.E., and outside the rick- 
yard, opened out a recumbent sarsen, which showed its head above 
the soil, but which Mr. King rightly conjectured to possess a huge 
body buried beneath. It proved to be of considerable size, about 
eight feet in length, as near as we were able to judge by digging. 
This we believe to have been one of the stones of the inner circle 
surrounding the Cove? From hence returning into the mea- 
dow hard by, we directed the workmen to dig a hole in a cavity 
where an upright stone of the northern circle stood, N.N.E. of the 
Cove. Here too we found a quantity of burnt and blackened 
chipped sarsens, as also many fragments of old-fashioned flat glass 
bottles, one nearly entire, of about the date 1700. This latter 
discovery was by no means remarkable, as an inn formerly occu- 
pied the spot where the farm house now stands in the yard adjoin- 
ing, and jovial spirits may have demolished empty bottles a century 
and a half ago, as they sometimes do now: or Tom Robinson, so 
well denounced by Stukely as the Herostratus of his day, and 
whose name is not endeared to the Wiltshire archzxologist, may 
have been a thirsty soul. 
In the same meadow, and at the S.E. portion of it there stands 
a low embankment, raised some two or three feet above the general 
level. The object of this embankment is wholly unknown, and 
with a view to its investigation, we cut right through it from west 
to east, but we found nothing, with the exception of a portion of 
stags horn and some fragments of pottery. In the same meadow, 
~ due east and a little to the north of this embankment and near the 
old Down road, we sunk a hole, but without finding anything. 
. * 
EXCAVATIONS AT THE SOUTHERN CIRCLE. 
We now crossed over to the south circle, and found the exact 
centre, by careful measurement from the still standing stones of the 
outer circle: since (together with perfectly distinct traces of 
cavities where others stood) enough of these stones remained to 
enable us to obtain an accurate segment of the circle. Here then, 
at a distance of 163 feet from the outside stones of the circle, we 
sunk a large square hole; and our measurements had not deceived 
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