®lie gclstone on fliiige f)ill, iovtcshnm. 



By E. CUNNINGTON, Esq. 



^1^ 



"pERHAPS I may be permitted to say a few wonls in 

 the first place as to the origin and composition 

 of the many large rough stones, usually called 

 Sarsens, around us at Portesham, and those 

 following the stream down the valley to the sea. 

 Professor Prestwich and other geologists consider 

 them to be large masses of sand concreted together 

 by a silicious cement. When the chalk stratum, now forming our 

 highest hills, was at the bottom of the sea, beds of sands, clays, 

 and gravels were deposited upon it ; when these were afterwards 

 raised above the bed of the ocean they were denuded by the 

 powerful action of seas, glaciers, and rivers, by which the main 

 portion was carried away, leaving these blocks of sandy rock 

 scattered about. In parts of Wiltshire their remains are very 

 abundant ; they occupy for miles the bed of a valley near Clatford, 

 Marlborough. Helstone, the name of the group of stones now 

 before us, comes from either the Anglo-Saxon " hele," to hide or 

 cover, or from " Hel," in K'orthern mythology the Goddess of the 

 dead. Originally it was a long barrow, containing in its centre 

 the nine stones supporting the large top or table-stone, lO^ft. long, 

 by 6ft. broad, covering the usual interment. The lapse of many 

 centuries has worn away the covering earth and exposed the stones 



