20 Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 
No absolutely conclusive signs of the Duke of Buckingham’s 
digging, said to have caused the fall of the great trilithon in 1620, 
were observed But in Excavation V., in front of the leaning 
stone, the ground was seen to have been disturbed to a depth of 
about 3 feet; the chalk rubble being more mixed with earth than 
elsewhere, it is hence not impossible that someone might have dug 
there. The excavation could not have been carried to a much 
greater depth, otherwise the “bluestone,” No. 68, would have been 
overthrown. It might, however, have extended to the front of 
the now recumbent stone, No. 55, as the two large blocks of sarsen 
which acted as the supports of this stone on that side had the 
ground entirely cut away from above and almost completely from 
around them. Any attempt to raise or dislodge these blocks would 
certainly have caused the fall of the monolith. 
From the position of the impost as it now lies it would seem 
that No. 55 was the first to topple, and in its fall it dragged over 
the other upright of the trilithon, the hitherto “leaning” stone. 
The complete prostration of the latter was, however, checked partly 
by the “bluestone” upright, No. 68, but chiefly by the great depth 
to which its base was buried in the ground. ‘ 
OBJECTS FOUND IN THE EXCAVATIONS. 
We will now proceed to the consideration of the objects found 
in the excavations. They comprise chippings and lumps of the 
stones, stone tools, bones, and a few coins and fragments of pottery. 
The chippings and pieces of stone are those which had been de- 
tached from the stones and the tools during the operations of 
shaping and dressing. They were found in very large quantities. 
All the varieties of rock, of which the sarsens and “ bluestones ” 
consist, were, as we have already seen, represented, and there was 
an exceptional quantity of the soft “ fissile rock” and of porphyrite 
considering the few remains of stones of those materials now 
existing. 

1 Ina paper,‘‘Stonehenge: an Enquiry respecting the Fall of the Trilithons,” ~ 
in Man, 1902, No. 97, Mr. A. L. Lewis adduces evidence to show that the 
trilithon, of which the “‘ leaning stone” is one of the piers, had fallen before 
this date. 

