910 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J, 



form of enclosure, or the rectangle with rounded corners, 

 appears to have come into use at a later period. 



Csesar describes the British towns as being clearings in the 

 forest surrounded by a circular enclosure, within which the 

 cattle were penned, and the huts of the town dwellers 

 erected. 



The groups of hut circles in the south-west of England 

 which mark the sites of old British towns show that the 

 body of the house was excavated, the eaves of the roof resting 

 on the ground ; but the bas-rehefs on Trajan's column at 

 Rome show the circular domed hut with upright walls. 



With Roman occupation came in the rectangular style of 

 building, and no permanent traces remain in England or 

 France of the early use of the circle as a constructive form, 

 with the exception of the circles of upright stones known as 

 Druidical, which appear to be in some way connected 

 with serjDent worship, although the temples in Cambodia, 

 built for this cult, show no trace of circular forms. 



In Sardinia, however, there is a profusion of the strange 

 circular towers called nuraghs, which have the peculiarity of 

 a diminutive entrance leading by a kind of tunnel in the 

 thickness of the wall to the central chamber. 



Curiously enough the construction of these ruined riddles 

 is attributed to a race said to have crossed over from Africa 

 at an early date, whilst in South Africa are now being 

 explored the circular ruins in Mashonaland which are exciting 

 so much curiosity, and which, so far as can be understood 

 from verbal description, appear to have an analogy with the 

 Sardinian nuraghs. 



And here may be said to end the record of what we know 

 of the early use of circular forms in building. Asia Minor, 

 Assyj'ia, and China exhibit everywhere rectangular types of 

 structure. Crossing the Atlantic, neither in Peru, Yucatan, 

 Mexico, or Arizona do we find anything but rectangular 

 types, with one exception — in the barrack-like erections of 

 the aiaandoned pueblos of Western North America we find 

 the estufa, or council chamber, on the central hearth of which 

 always burned the sacred fire, to be of a circular form, blocked 

 out from the rectangular walls within which it was enclosed ; 

 and this seems to bring us back to the " tholos " or hearth 

 dome with which we started. 



On the otlier hand, throughout Africa, with the exception 

 of the Nile valley, and extending northward to the Arctic 

 Circle, we find everywhere evidence of the early prevalence 



