By William Long, Esq. 119 



in the neighbourhood of Marlborough, amongst that assemblage of 

 rocky fragments called the Grey Wethers ; would be floated down 

 the Lesser Avon to Amesbury ; conveyed to the spot where they now 

 stand with the assistance of rollers ; and lifted to their present situ- 

 ation by the inclined plane ; operations which seem to include no 

 particular sagacity in their designation, or difficulty in their execution; 

 particularly when it is recollected that the whole strength of the 

 nation was directed to accomplish the work by the irresistable im- 

 pulse of superstition/^ Mr. Max Miiller, in his interesting paper on 

 " Cornish Antiquities/^ in the third volume of " Cliips from a Ger- 

 man Workshop/^ thus treats this question : " Marvellous as are the 

 remains of that primitive style of architectural art, the only real 

 problem they offer is how such large stones could have been brought 

 together from a distance, and how such enormous weights could 

 have been lifted up. The first question is answered by ropes and 

 rollers, and the mural sculptures of Nineveh show us what can be 

 done by such simple machinery. We there see the whole picture of 

 how these colossal blocks of stone were moved from the quarry on 

 to the place where they were wanted. Given plenty of time, and 

 plenty of men and oxen, and there is no block which could not be 

 brought to its right place by means of ropes and rollers. And that 

 our forefathers did not stint themselves either in time, or in men, or 

 other cattle, when engaged in erecting such monuments, we know 

 even from comparatively modern times. Under Harold Harfagr, 

 two kings spent three whole years in erecting one single tumulus ; 

 and Harold Blatand is said to have employed the whole of his army 

 and a vast number of oxen in transporting a large stone which he 

 wished to place on his mother's tomb. (Saxo Grammaticus, ' Historia 

 Danica,' lib. x., p. 167, ed. Francfurt, 1576.) As to the second 

 question, we can readily understand how, after the supporters had 

 once been fixed in the ground, an artificial mound might be raised, 

 which, when the heavy slab had been rolled up on an inclined plane, 

 might be removed again, and thus leave the heavy stone poised in 

 its startling elevation.'^ 



The writer is indebted to Weaver's "Monumenta Antiqua'' (Nichols 

 1840), for the foUowing quotation : " Bray, in his work on the part 



