199 
were used for interments. This opinion of Mr Evans is sup- 
ported by the fact that Mr Pratt, whose garden at Abury now 
occupies the site of the Southern circle, found in 1880, near the 
centre of the circle, an urn full of bones.* 
Mr Evans believes that the stone circle surrounding a central 
dolmen or stone cist which once contained the remains of the 
dead, such as may be found in every part of the world, had its 
origin in the subterranean dwellings of man during the epochs 
of the Cave Bear and the Reindeer. In the Lapp Gamme such 
dwellings are still in use, with ring stones propping up the 
turf-covered mounds, and low entrance galleries leading to the 
chamber within.t+ 
The Native Australians are constructing sepulchral monu- 
ments at the present day of a similar type. 
Mr Evans suggests that the ring of stones, placed round 
the grave mound, became a stone circle; and the subterranean 
cist an exposed dolmen. The avenue is a lineal descendant of 
_ the underground gallery which led to the sepulchral chamber. 
It has been often noticed that our stone circles have an 
opening to the Hast or North-East. This orientation, as time 
went on, may have become connected with the worship of the 
sun; but we find its origin in the Laplander’s house. In the 
far North, where during a great part of the year the hours of 
daylight are very few, and therefore very precious, it is a 
common custom to construct the openings toward the Hast, 
so that the inmates of the subterranean dwellings may be 
_ awakened by the first rays of the rising sun. 
But if the megalithic circles were originally sepulchral, 
and such is the universal tradition, they may also have been in 
some sense Temples, not for serpent worship, but for the cult 
of the dead. An incense cup was found at Stonehenge, near 
* A Hundred Square Miles round Abury. By the Rey. A. C. Smith, p. 142. 
+ Compare the ground-plans of subterranean dwellings extant at Chapel 
Euny, in the parish of Sancreed ; at Chysoister, in the parish of Gulval; and at 
_ Bosporthenis, in the parish of Zennor, in Cornwall. Prehistoric Stone Monwments 
of the British Isles, Cornwall, plates xxxv.-xxxix. 
