6 
an accurate knowledge of the duration of the year and of. the days 
for the commencement of each of the four seasons of the year was 
of extreme importance, then such a people would above all 
others be glad to undergo some considerable sacrifice of wealth 
or of effort for the acquisition of this desired knowledge. I 
believe the Phcenicians to have been such a people, and that 
Stonehenge was a result of their efforts in this direction. Their 
ways were ever ways of secresy, and their buildings were 
generally Cyclopean. Here in a remote island which they 
had discovered, and with which they carried on a most lucrative 
trade in tin, they found a plain of sufficient elevation as regards 
horizon and strewn with enormous stones fitted for their purpose. 
Here, too, was a population which they had so prudently handled 
in their trade dealings that it was easy to hire the entire strength 
of the population to supplement and work out what their science 
had designed. Thus the great rocks were moved and lifted, to 
the pleased astonishment of the native workers, and the 
satisfaction of the foreigners who directed. Now what was the 
object to which all this effort was directed? They were about to 
erect a Temple to their principal Deity, the Sun, whose four special 
festivals would naturally be held at the four Cardinal Seasons of 
the year, the precise days for which they would thus, both as a 
religious and as a practical people, be anxious to determine. 
These days would of course be :— 
The longest day in each year. 
The shortest day in each year. 
The day of the Vernal Equinox. 
The day of the Autumnal Equinox. 
Se cae Ow ae 
These would give them the four seasons of the year, and year 
by year the observations would have to be renewed in order that 
they might ascertain by experiment what their science failed to tell 
them, namely, the true commencements of each of the four seasons 
of the year. 
