Finch on the Celtic Antiquities of America. 151 
of tools with which to shape and polish masses of rocks: 
and the first national monuments we read of in sacred writ, 
were rude stones, either placed alone, formed into a circle, 
or piled into a heap. 
These shapeless stones are proofs of the highest antiquity 
in any nation where they are found, and were erecte by 
rved even the 
name; they remind us of times to which our calculations 
The monuments which they erected, while in distinet 
hordes they successively traversed the various quarters 
the world, may be divided into five species. Ist. Cro 
lechs. 2d. Stones of memorial or sacrifice. 3d. Circles of 
memorial. 4th, Rocking Stones. 5th. Tumuli or Barrows. 
‘The barbarous priests some dreadful God adore, 
And sprinkle every stone with human gore. 
The voice of history, with perhaps too just.a decision, af- 
fixes the perpetration of this enormity upon all the tribes 
Who departed from the land of Scythia; but whether these 
re the altars consecrated for such purposes, is one of those 
Secrets which perhaps even time can never solve. 
