By William Long, Esq. 223 



appended, and the British King then reigning is Aurelius Ambrosius. 

 The print in Gough's Camden, from which the woodcut at page 46 

 was taken, is not faithfully copied; but as the generally rude and 

 inaccurate character of the original sketch is sufficiently shown, it 

 seems to be hardly worth while to have it re-engraved. 



The Stones of the inner Circle and Inner Ellipse. 

 (Page 59.; 



The great puzzle about Stonebenge is in connection with these 

 smaller stones, which are foreign to the neighbourhood. We cannot 

 be far wrong in believing that the entire structure was intended to 

 serve as a temple for religious worship j and we know whence the 

 large stones came, and how " with much ado and pains " they could 

 be set up ; but we are in perplexity about these primitive stones 

 from Wales or Cornwall. Were they brought here, in the first 

 instance, in ignorance of the existence of the sarsen stones in the 

 neighbourhood? This is not likely. Were they brought here to 

 decorate the interior of the temple, as we should employ rare and 

 costly marble from a distance to adorn the interior of a church ? 

 This again is not likely, as although by shaping and polishing they 

 might be rendered more comely, they are at present in no way 

 ornamental. 



For the merely structural purposes o£ making a circle and ellipse, 

 sarsen stones of the same height and size would have been equally 

 serviceable. 



We are forced to believe that some special religious value was 

 attached to stones of this particular kind, and that no other stones 

 could have supplied their place in a building of this character. 



That medicinal and other virtues were believed to be the property of 

 particular stones we know from Pliny (Book xxxvi.) and others; and 

 Aubrey tells us (p. 35) that pieces of these stones were put into wells 

 "to drive away theToades.^' It is not unlikely that enquiries into the 

 superstitious value, which has at different times and in different 

 places, become associated with particular stones, will render it almost 

 certain to us that these smaller Stonebenge stones were held in such 

 high regard as to make the trouble of bringing them from a great 



