By Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.GS8., Fe. 128 
 Grey-wethers”!) ; and are thinly scattered elsewhere, among the 
heather of the downs and the grassy herbage of low grounds, or 
peeping out on arable fields. They often lie along hedge-rows 
where they have been hauled and left by the farmer. Many have 
been buried out of the way of the plough. Hundreds were formerly 
to be seen about the country in cromlechs, standing stones, and 
ancient circles ; but of these comparatively very few remain. Not 
unfrequently Sarsens are found in the gravel-beds of the surface. 
Being the only durable stone in some districts, innumerable blocks 
have been used as stepping-stones in brooks and wet lanes,—as 
border-stones for ponds,—as corner-stones along roads and village 
streets,—as foundation-stones in churches, bridges, houses, barns, 
and outbuildings,—as building-stones in large and small edifices, 
castles, churches, houses, cottages, and various walls. Enormous 
quantities have been broken up for making and mending roads, also 
for paving and gate-posts. The art of breaking and destroying 
the very largest has long been known and freely used, namely, by 
lighting narrow streaks of firewood across a block and pouring cold 
water on the heated lines, and then bringing the sledge-hammer 
into play on the pieces. So also a line of shallow pits chipped 
across the surface gives a line of weakness for breakage. 
When exposed on the Downs these stones are often grey with 
lichen ; and their own colour varies from brown to a yellowish tint 
and grey. In shape they are usually more or less quadrangular, 
longer than broad, and much broader than thick. They may be 
plain and smooth, or undulating and irregular with hollows on the 
surface. One face is usually flatter than the other. They often 
occur broken in two with a sharp, clean, straight fracture across 
their length. 
II.—Size or THE SARSENS. 
On the Frimley Ridges, Surrey :— 
Length. Breadth. Thickness. Cubic Measurement. Weight. 
Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Tons. 
12 5 2 120 83 
1“ The Grey Wethers which lye scattered all over the downes about Marle- 
borough, and incumber the ground for at least seven miles in diameter,” &c. 
“T have mett with this kind of stones sometimes as far as from Christian Malford 
