By William, Long, Esq. 49 



in the reign of James I. caused the middle of Stonehenge to be dug, 

 where remains a cavity as big as two saw-pits. This occasioned the 

 falling down or inclination of a stone 21 feet long. There were 

 found heads and horns of stags and oxen^ charcoal, arrowheads, rusty 

 armour and rotten bones, but whether of men or beasts uncertain. 

 (Aubrey, Mon. Brit.) The whole number of stones, uprights, im- 

 posts, and altar is exactly 140. The stones are far from being 

 artificial, but were most probably brought from those called the Grey 

 Weathers on Marlborough Downs, 15 or 16 miles off, and if tried 

 with a tool they appear of the same hardness, grain, and colour, 

 generally reddish. (Mr. Aubrey says, ' on the downs one may dis- 

 cern whence the great stones both of Abury and Stonehenge were 

 brought. Some not big enough for the purpose lie still at the brink 

 of the pit. Some were left by the way. One lies in the water at 

 Fighelden. Another on the downs resting on three low stones iu 

 order to be carried away. This was between Rockley and Marl- 

 borough.') The heads of oxen, deer, and other beasts have been 

 found on digging in and about Stonehenge : but the human bones 

 our author speaks of only in the circumjacent barrows. Dr. Stukeley, 

 1723, dug on the inside of the altar to a bed of solid chalk mixed 

 with flints. In the reign of Henry VIII. was found here a plate 

 of tin, inscribed with many letters, but in so strange a character 

 that neither Sir Thomas Elliot, a learned antiquary, nor Mr. Lilly, 

 Master of St. Paul's School, could make them out. This plate to 

 the great loss of the learned world was soon after lost. (Holland, 

 Stukeley.) Two stone pillars appear at the foot of the bank next 

 the area in which the building stands, and these are answered by 

 two spherical pits at foot of the said bank, one with a single bank 

 of earth about it, and the other with a double bank separated by a 

 ditch (Wood, p. 43). There are three entrances from the plain to 

 this structure, the most considerable of which is from the north-east, 

 and at each of them were raised on the outside of the trench two 

 huge stones with two smaller within parallel to them. The avenue 

 to Stonehenge was first observed by Mr. Aubrey. Dr. Stukeley 

 found that it extended more than 170U feet down to the bottom of 

 the valley, and was raised a little above the downs between two 



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