TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 83 


usual classes,—pillars, dolmens or cromlechs, tumuli, circles, &c. A stone of sacrifice 
_ ‘was mentioned, hollowed for receiving the back and shoulders of the resupine human 
victim ; an obelisk, now fallen and broken, measuring sixty-four feet in length, and 
computed to weigh upwards of 300 tons; and the Mont St. Michel, a large tumulus 
surmounting a natural hill, having on it a chapel dedicated to St. Michael, whence its 
pristine design and use as a temple were inferred. The chief objects of interest, 
however, were five instances of an arrangement hitherto not elsewhere found. 
Nine, eleven, thirteen parallel rows or lines of pitched stones, varying from a‘huge 
to an almost diminutive size, form so many parallelitha, traversing and featuring 
the country. The lengths, too, are various. One springing near the bourg of 
Erdeven, extends a mile and three furlongs. Adjoining the heads of the parallelitha, 
are inclosures, viewed as temples, to which these long avenues led. Three of sets of 
_ lines lie consecutively and suggest the impression that they were continuous. The 
_ remaining two lie apart from them, and from each other. If, as the Rev. John 
| Bathurst Deane,—the precursor, and, by his excellent chart of the ground, (in the 
_ ‘twenty-fifth volume of the ‘ Archzologia,’) the main guide of these travellers,—has 
_ reasoned, the intervening spaces were once occupied by similar series, connecting the 
five into one enormous Dracontium or temple of serpent-worship, imitating the 
windings of the deified reptile, the whole monument must have been the most stu- 
pendous of its kind in the world. To this were compared certain Scandinavian monu- 
ments, having the same character of Fields of Stones; differing herein, that the 
‘stones are disposed for the marking out of promiscuous graves ; some being set to 
‘express the figure of a boat. The Swedish antiquaries account them battle-fields, 
turned into the cemeteries of the slain; the boat indicating where some illustrious 
sea-king or sea-hero lies. Attention was invited to this agreement between the 
_ monuments of the old Scandinavians and their historically-known spirit and man- 
__ ners ; whilst those of the Bretons represent, if aright understood by us, that domina- 
_ tion of the great druidical hierarchy, which stands out as the most conspicuous fea- 
ture in the social constitution of ancient Gaul. Subordinate discriminations of the 
_ same tendency were pointed out in certain Scandinavian circles, considered as courts 
_ of law, suitably to the jealous respect for law and the litigious temper of the old 
_ Norseman at home; whilst the sacerdotal character of the Celtic remains re-appears, 
in the Logan or Rocking stones, spread over the Celtic—unknown seemingly on the 
_ Germanic—soil, and supposed ministrant in oracular uses. The importance of thus 
_ identifying the characters and monuments of nations, was urged in an ethnological 
_ view. The extraordinary remains at Carnac invite alike the scientific and the traveller 
for mere pleasure. 



















On the Alphabet of the Indian Archipelago. By J. Craururn, F.RS. 
The paper summed up by stating that the nine alphabets of the Archipelago are 
the produce of five large islands only out of the innumerable ones that compose it. 
_ The most fertile and civilized island of Java has produced the most perfect alphabet, 
and that which has acquired the widest diffusion. The entire great group of the 
_ Philippines has produced a single alphabet; even this one is less perfect than the 
_ alphabets of the western nations, in proportion as the Philippine islanders, when 
_ first seen by Europeans, were in a lower state of civilization than the advanced 
-hations of the west of the Archipelago. * * * * The Indian islanders write on palm 
_ leaves, which have received no other preparation than that of being dried and cut in 
slips ; on the inner bark of trees, a little polished only by rubbing; on slips of the 
_ bamboo- cane simply freed from its epidermis; and on stone, metal, and finally 
paper. The palm-leaf employed is that of the Contar, or Lontarus flabelliformis. 
. * * The instrument for writing with on the palm-leaf, on bark, and on the bamboo 
is aniron style ; and the writing is in fact a rude engraving, which is rendered legible 
by rubbing powdered charcoal over the surface, that falls into the grooves, and is 
Swept off the smooth surface. The Javanese alone understand the manufacture of 
akind of paper. This is evidently a native art, and not borrowed from strangers ;— 
as is plain from the material, the process, and the name. The plant, in the Javanese 
age, is called gluza, Broussonetia papyrifera, and the article itself dalwwan 
changed into dalancan for the polite language. The process is not the ingenious 
one of China, India, Persia, and Europe, but greatly resembles that making the 
* 


