Bi/ William Long, Esq. 19 



abound in Salisbury Plain, and having' found one which was both 

 near the site fixed upon and was also remarkable for the enormous 

 size of its blocks, he immediately collected a number of ' navvies,' 

 giving them orders to set to work hard and lay the ground open, 

 wide and deep. The men got their tools together, and set to work. 

 But when they came to raise to the surface the largest of the blocks 

 out of its native bed, the ' navvies ' were utterly at a non-jdus what 

 to do. Then Merlin by his art and skill lent that aid which the 

 men's strength could not supply. Bj' wonderful ingenuity that 

 seemed almost inspired, he constructed machines similar to, and 

 certainly not less cleverly contrived than those which in his Tenth 

 Book on Architecture, Vitruvius attributes to Ctesiphon and 

 Metagenes. So superior in difficult undertakings is the mind to 

 the body. And now the engines were set up, the work glowed, 

 every one being intent upon his own special business. To be brief, 

 at least 50 slabs [tabula;'], of immense size and weight were brought 

 to the spot where a large number of the British nobility had been 

 put to death. Recourse was again had to genius and machinery, 

 for Merlin, having marked out a round place, ordered the stone- 

 quarriers to set up those enormous blocks, which were much greater 

 in height than in breadth, and to place them in circular form at 

 equal intervening distances. His nest order was to unite the 

 summits of these stones by placing enormous blocks over the vacant 

 intervals, so as to form a crown. Besides these, other stones also 

 were set up in the same, or very similar manner, only within the 

 area of the outer circle, of which some have fallen through the in- 

 jury of time. The same has also happened to some of the coronary 

 stones of the first circle." ^ 



' " About the fetching of them from Ireland, it is all fabulous. For every 

 person even of common information must know that these stones, so large as 

 not even to be moved by any mechanism in our unscientific days, were brought 

 by Merlin with marvellous skill and the help of ingenious machinery from some 

 neighbouring quarry to the place where they are now the admiration of travel- 

 lers. It would, indeed, have puzzled him to bring them by sea to Amesbury, 

 for there is no sea coast within 20 miles of it." From the Latin in Collectanea, 

 11., by Canon Jackson {Wilt'i Mac/, i., 176), who says, "It is remarkable that 

 though so close to Stonehenge (which, no doubt, he saw), Leland has left no 

 description of that place or Avebur j ." 



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