] 34 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



were in point of size, perfectly insignificant compared with the 

 enormous statues and obelisks of Egyj^t. The statue of Sesostris, 

 at Thebes, weighed 892 tons, being one single block. So that there 

 was no great magic required for moving stones of 40 or 50 tons. 

 It was only a question of so many bullocks or men. The whole 

 story of Stonehenge admitted of a perfectly simple explanation, if 

 people would only be satisfied with the story stripped of the absurd- 

 ities with which time and the want of regular history has invested 

 it. But they had been so long accustomed to think that it must 

 necessarily belong to some unknown period of antiquity, that to call 

 it only 1300 or 1400 years old was not to be endured. The subject 

 was enveloped in obscurity, but, upon the whole, he leaned to the 

 opinion that it was of the fifth century. 



" Mr. Mateham said he had no intention of attempting to answer 

 every argument which Mr. Jackson had adduced, but there were one 

 or two observations which had fallen from that gentleman to which 

 he would take the liberty of adverting. With reference to Stone- 

 henge having been the work of the Belgae (a suggestion, by thp way, 

 not originally made by Dr. Guest, but propounded before he was 

 born), he asked, how the stones forming the outer circle at Stonehenge 

 could have been obtained, supposing Wansdyke to have been the 

 boundary between the Belgse and the ancient Britons? It was 

 pretty well established that they were sarsen stones, which could 

 not have been found in sufficient quantity on the southern side of 

 Wansdyke. Stones of that kind must have existed in considerable 

 quantities, to have enabled the workmen to pick out large uniform 

 blocks like those at Stonehenge. So far with reference to the Belgse 

 having been the authors of Stonehenge. Supposing it, however, to 

 have been built by Vortigern, there was no occasion to enter further 

 into the question, but he (Mr. Mateham) thought there were strong 

 reasons against that supposition. Now as to its erection subsequent 

 to the desertion of this island by the Romans : — everybody who 

 visited Stonehenge must acknowledge it to have been the result of a 

 vast amount of labour — the whole mind and body of the people 

 must have beem brought together for that one purpose. That, he 

 apprehended, could not have been the case at the time of the desertion 



