By William .Long, Esq. 87 



" Some years ago, I do not remember the year, but it was that in 

 which Mr. Autrobus came of age [? 1839], and that there were 

 rejoicings at Amesbury, an officer from Devonport, named Captain 

 Beamish, who was staying at the George Hotel, having obtained 

 the permission of the proprietor, made an excavation somewhere 

 about eight feet square and six feet deep, in front of the altar- stones 

 digging backward some little distance under it. I remember dis- 

 tinctly the hole being dug through the chalk rubble and rock. 

 Nothing was found excepting some bits of charcoal, and a considerable 

 quantity of the bones of rabbits. Before the hole was filled up, I 

 buried a bottle, containing a record of the excavation." 



It thus appears that there have been already many and extensive 

 diggings within the circles and the vallum, and that the result has 

 been inconsiderable, beyond the throwing down of one of the tri- 

 lithons. It has been recently proposed to examine " the flat surface 

 within the stone circles," and perhaps " the ditch of the earthwork 

 surrounding the structure.'" ^ It would be well, therefore, to consider 

 carefully the incidental notices of what has been already done in this 

 way, and to calculate whether any future examination of the soil 

 would be likely to be attended with more satisfactory results. The 

 writer ventures to express his belief that the only important result 

 would be the determination of the non-sepulchral character of the 

 work. But even the discovery of human remains within the circles 

 would no more prove that Stonehenge was constructed to be a burial 

 place, than the finding of bishops' and other peoples' bodies in cathe- 

 drals would be decisive that these buildings had not been erected 

 with the primary object of promoting the worship and service of 

 Almighty God. 



AVarton, in his " Parochial History of Kiddington," says of Roll- 

 rich, that some years ago, " Its area, which is without a tumulus, 

 was examined to a considerable depth by digging, and no marks of 

 inhumation appeared ; " and Stukeley had previously mentioned that 



'Colonel Lane Fox " on the Proposed Exploration of Stonih'nge by a Com- 

 mittee of the British Association." — Journal of the Ethnological Society of 

 London, vol. ii., p. 1, 18G9. 



