106 The Fiftieth General Meeting. 


































but of all archeologists, to Sir Edmund Antrobus. On one point 
Mr. Goddard ventured to question the accuracy of the opinions 
expressed by Dr. Gowland and Professor Judd as to the probability 
that all the stones of the structure—the “blue stones” as well 
as the sarsens—were found on or near the spot. With regard 
to the sarsens, those who know the country know that, roughly 
speaking, to the south of Upavon on the Avon Valley practically 
hardly any sarsen stones are found—a few small and _ hard 
quartzites, it is true, are to be seen here and there beside the roads 
in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge—but with the exception of 
the big stone in the river at Bulford and one or two others, no 
large sarsens are to be seen now either on the Plain or in the 
villages: If they had ever been there, there the remains of them 
would be now. Everyone who knews anything of the sarsen country 
about Marlborough and Avebury, and Swindon, knows that no stone 
is so indestructible, and that though the big stones may be broken 
up and disappear, their remains will continue to exist in the gate- 
posts, the garden walls, the houses, and the pitched paths of the 
villages. North of Upavon all the old walls of houses and gardens 
are built of sarsen stone—whereas to the south of this point you 
will hardly find a single sarsen wall or a piece of sarsen pitching. 
The old garden walls of the Plain and of South Wilts are universally — 
built of mud, and the gateposts are never of sarsen. In Amesbury 
itself there are no signs of sarsen used as building stones. More- 
over, the existence of the well-known legend as to the stone in the 
river at Bulford shows that sarsens were never common in that 
neighbourhood. Nobody would ever think it necessary to invent. 
such a story to account for the presence of such a stone anywhere 
in the Marlborough district. In fact the whole of the evidence 
goes to prove that there never were any number of large sarsens 
on the Plain (if there had been they could not have so completely 
disappeared), and that the older belief that they came from the 
neighbourhood of Marlborough or Lockeridge—where great num- 
bers still exist—is far more likely to be correct. As regards the 
“blue stones,” Professor Judd suggests’ that they were “erratic” 
blocks found on the spot. In support of this theory he can only 
