154 Congress of British ArcTimologicai Association at Devizes. 



fallen stone, whicli served as a rostrum to the successive speakers, 

 Lord Nelson pleaded for the conservation of Stonehenge, by setting 

 upright a now prostrate trilithon on the western side, which was 

 known to have fallen in 1797, and by pushing back and securing 

 one of the two large single stones of the inner ellipse, which now 

 leans threateningly upon an inner obelisk, and must, if not attended 

 to, fall within a short time. The exact position and appearance of 

 the fallen trilithon are known, and the restoration could be effected 

 without risk by present mechanical appliances. Mr. Cunnington 

 then gave a general description of the various circles and ellipses, 

 every stone having been previously lettered in chalk by the speaker 

 to facilitate identification. The largest stones, he explained, were 

 " sarsens,^' remains of a bed of sand which, ages since, was deposited 

 above the chalk. They were formed by the agglutinizing of some 

 particles into silieious sandstones, and were left exposed on the 

 surface when the looser portions were washed away. These sarsens 

 were found abundantly in some of the valleys on the Marlborough 

 Downs. The obelisks were considerably smaller, and were of two 

 varieties of stone, one a hornstone and the other " diabase " (the 

 former scarcely an accurate term), both igneous rocks, but neither 

 of which could be found in England or Wales. These were all grey, 

 or of various shades of green and black. The middle or altar-stone 

 was grey, and was a micaceous sandsone, possibly derived from the 

 coal-measures in the neighbourhood of Frome. In the construction 

 of this building — whatever its purpose — a high mechanical know- 

 ledge and very great skill were displayed, the more sui'prising 

 since it was probably done without the use of iron tools. Construc- 

 tive ability was shown not alone in the transport and setting up of 

 these huge stones, but in the system of mortise and tenon and 

 ''joggle tenon ^•' employed to secure the transverse slabs. 



Mr. Morgan, F.S.A., read a paper on the etymology of the name, 

 which had been conjecturally derived from Hengist, hanging, or 

 suspended, stones, and stones of hanging, or gibbets. He favoured 

 the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, that it was derived from the Saxon 

 Btane-ing or field of stones ; and nothing could be more appropriate, 

 standing as it did in the midst of an acropolis of some three hundred 



