86 On the Stone Avenues of Carnac 
European scientific movement, being demolished by man’s hand and 
made more ruinous than the furious blasts of the mighty Atlantic 
and tens of centuries of winters rains had left them. 
It may now be said to me, ‘You have told us what you suppose 
were zot the uses of these remarkable monuments, surely after so 
long an examination and study of them as you have made, you are 
prepared to tell us what you think these uses were.” To you I must 
give the same reply as I have given to others. Iam just beginning 
to learn the alphabet, therefore ‘you cannot expect me to read the 
language before I have mastered the letters. It is a step in the 
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right direction to have convinced myself that what has been supposed 
to be one monument, is in fact a number of separate and distinct 
monuments, each having its own features and peculiarities. There 
are more monuments of a like nature, with individual peculiarities, 
in Britanny which are scarcely known. There are systems of avenues 
associated with circles in other countries, in Great Britain, in 
Lombardy, in Africa, as well as in India. Careful and accurate 
plans of all these should be made, and comparisons instituted between 
them, and researches prosecuted among them, and possibly their 
difficult language may in course of time be correctly interpreted. 
It seems to me that archeologists have all been too prone to dogmatise 
upon these monuments with an insufficient knowledge of their 
construction. You may yourselves read in publications of leading 
antiquarian societies in this country and in France, statements and 
opinions relative to Britanny monuments which are based upon false 
premises. Now in endeavouring to interpret the meaning of these 
celebrated Carnac lines regard must be had and attention given to 
two points, viz.: to groups of rows of pillars, and pillars arranged in 
circles, and to these two distinct features here brought into relation- 
ship with each other. Mr. Stuart, of Edinburgh, has expressed his 
opinion that circles of stones are not temples, but sepulchral enclosures. 
Up to this time, there is no evidence to show that the terminating 
circles of Menec, and Kerlescant were used as burial places. It is true 
that in the summer of 1869 I found fragments of coarse clay vessels and. 
flint scrapers and chippings within the area of the latter circle, which 
had just been broken up for planting, but they were too few to afford 
