248 



^tkxh of mx ^"bkm 



Delivered by Dr. Phene to the Geologists' Association, 

 At Stonehenge, on the 18th of April, 1881. 



^^'^S my address at Devizes, in August last, has led you to call 

 ^^^ on me to act as your Director on this occasion, I think it 

 as well — the subject being one of broad interest, and indeed of 

 research — not to go over the same arguments, as they will be pub- 

 lished in the Wiltshire Magazine for this year, but to give some 

 reasons beyond those expressed by me on that occasion for the pro- 

 bability of the views I then advanced. 



The sublime structure in which we are assembled consists of 

 monuments of, I think, two seras, with a vast lapse of ages betweeUj 

 and while the more recent is hoary with almost decades of centuries, 

 the older indicates a multiple of the date of the more modern by a 

 figure, the mag-nitude of which it is difficult to fix. 



To interest you as geologists in the matter I may point out that 

 various controversies have arisen on the nature of the stones, and 

 while I leave this as a matter for your own investigation to deter- 

 mine, a point arises from it of no small interest, viz., that the smaller 

 stones, which I think are undoubtedly the older, are not local, while 

 the larger and more recent are, though I believe the composition of 

 both varies [i.e.) neither all the larger nor all the smaller stones will 

 be found corresponding exactly with each other. As microscopical 

 sections of the smaller stones can be seen in London, and as the com- 

 position of the larger or sarsen stones is well known, it is earnestly 

 hoped that no one will injure any of these relics with the hammer 

 wielded by most of you so usefully on the rocks. There is only one 

 possibility, I think, which could make the smaller stones indirectly 

 geologically local, and that is that they were wrought from deposited 

 boulders, but it is hardly credible that just so many boulders should 



