154 Druidism in connection with Wiltshire. 
is 140. The stones, which have been by some considered as arti- 
ficial, were most probably brought from those called the grey wethers 
on Marlborough Downs, distant fifteen or sixteen miles: and if 
tried with a tool, appear of the same hardness, grain, and colour, 
generally reddish. The heads of oxen, deer, and other beasts, have 
been found in digging in and about Stonehenge; and in the cir- 
cumjacent barrows human bones. From the plain to this structure 
there are three entrances, the most considerable of which is from 
the north-east ; and at each of them there were raised, on the out- 
side of the trench, two huge stones, with two smaller parallel ones 
within.” 
Mr. Grose, the antiquary, is of opinion that “ Dr. Stukeley has 
completely proved this structure to have been a British temple, in 
which the Druids officiated. He supposes it to have been the 
Metropolitan temple of Great Britain, and translates the words 
choir gaur, ‘the great choir or temple.’ The ancients distinguished 
stones erected with a religious view by the name of ambrosie 
petre, ambre stones, the word ambre implying whatever is solar 
and divine. According to Bryant, Stonehenge is composed of these 
ambre stones; and hence the next town is denominated Ambres- 
bury.” 
Stukeley himself states that he is ‘sufficiently satisfied from 
considering the different effect of the weather upon Abury and 
Stonehenge, the great diversity in the manner of the works, and 
some other considerations, that Abury must be above 700 years 
prior to Stonehenge:” and that while Stonehenge was probably 
coeval with the building of Solomon’s temple, the temples at Abury 
must have been erected about the Patriarch Abraham’s time, or 
soon after the expulsion of the Shepherd Kings from Egypt. 
Between the temples of Abury and Stonehenge there is undoubtedly 
a marked distinction, and the ruins of the latter with its imposts 
indicate a very marked advancement on the primitive architecture 
observable in the former. Stukeley has assigned several reasons | 
founded on the variation of the compass, which he justly supposes 
was known to the ancients; this we shall not now however con- 
sider, but prefer giving the following account from Strabo of the 
