50 



NATURE 



[March io, 1921 



Recent Work at Stonehenge. 



THE repair of Stonehenge by the Office of 

 Works has given occasion for the renewal 

 of the excavations which were begun some twenty 

 years ago by the Society of Antiquaries. The 

 event is of good omen, not only because of the 

 co-operation of a learned society with a Govern- 

 ment Department, but also because the new evi- 

 dence obtained by a season's work will emphasise 

 the necessity of field-work in archaeology. Much 

 has been written about Stonehenge and our pre- 

 historic monuments generally, but the past year 

 has contributed more to our actual knowledge 

 than all the theorists. The examination of the 

 so-called Aubrey holes has demonstrated the 

 former existence of a megafithic monument older 

 than the Stonehenge of to-day. It consisted of a 

 circle of standing stones, enclosed by a bank 

 and a ditch, and seems to have been robbed 

 of its stones, presumably for use in the 

 present Stonehenge, during the period of the 

 Bronze age in this country. Not long after the re- 

 moval of the stones cremated human remains were 

 placed in nearly all the holes in the chalk where 

 the stones had stood. Similar deposits have been 

 found in the ditch and elsewhere, and it will be 

 well to suspend judgment on their meaning until 

 the whole area has been thoroughly explored. 



Meanwhile it seems that the last attempts to 

 assign a date to Stonehenge should be recon- 

 sidered. The absence of any evidence that metal 

 tools were used in its construction, and the deduc- 

 tions based on astronomical grounds, appeared 

 to point to a date in the first half of the second 

 millennium B.C. A more recent date is at least 

 suge^ested by the late discoveries. 



During the course of the work the use of 

 modern cranes and jacks has inevitably sug- 

 gested a comparison with the mechanical means 

 possessed by the original builders. As is well 



known, there are tenons on the tops of the up- 

 right stones, fitting into mortises on the lintels^ 

 which are thus kept in their places. The lintels 

 also are worked with convex or concave ends, so 

 that each is secured to its neighbour by a rough 

 joggled joint. Stones so worked could only have 

 been placed in position by lowering from above, 

 and it is clear that the makers of Stonehenge were 

 equal to the task of raising stones weighing five 

 or six tons, and in some cases far more, to the 

 required heights, and of setting them on the up- 

 rights with absolute precision. The use of levers 

 and inclined planes of earth gives no satisfactory 

 explanation, and seems absolutely excluded on the 

 evidence of one of the existing lintels. This 

 shows an enlargement of the mortises along the 

 length of the under-side of the stone, which can 

 only be the correction of a miscalculation dis- 

 covered when the lintel was being lowered on to 

 the tenons. To make the necessary alteration the 

 lintel must have been removed, and this could 

 scarcely have been effected without the use of 

 some form of rope and a method of slinging, such 

 as would not be at the command of a primitive 

 and uncivilised community. 



As a megalithic monument Stonehenge is any- 

 thing but primitive, and is, indeed, in a class by 

 itself, so far as British monuments are concerned. 

 Whether the excavations of the next few years 

 will bring to light any convincing evidences of its 

 origin and purpose time alone can show. 



The question of the origin of the "blue 

 stones " has been once more attempted, and Dr. 

 H. H. Thomas, of the Geological Survey, has 

 positively identified them with the formation at 

 the Prescellv mountains in Pembrokeshire. This 

 is an important addition to our knowledge, 

 though the question of their transport to Stone- 

 henge is not thereby solved. 



Obituary. 



AS we go to press we deeply regret to see the 

 announcement that Lord Moulton died 

 during the night of March 8. 



Sir Felix Semon, the well-known laryngologist, 

 died on Tuesday, March i, at his residence at 

 Great Missenden, Bucks. Sir Felix was born at 

 Danzig in 1849, and received his medical education 

 at Heidelberg, Berlin — where he took the M.D. 

 degree in 1873 — ^"^ later in Vienna and Paris. 

 He then moved to London, received an appoint- 

 ment as clinical assistant at the Throat Hospital 

 in Golden Square in 1875, and rapidly became 

 known as an expert on diseases of the throat. 

 In 1885 he was elected a fellow of the Royal 

 College of Physicians, and in 1893 ^^ '^^^ one 

 of the founders of the Laryngological Society, of 

 which he was president for the years 1894-96. 

 When Sir Felix retired from London in 191 1 a 

 sum of 1040Z. was presented to him in recognition 

 NO. 2680, VOL. 107] 



of his services to laryngology ; this sum he pre- 

 sented to the University of London to establish 

 the Semon Lecture Trust for the purpose of 

 awarding a commemorative bronze medal for 

 work on the treatment of diseases of the throat 

 and nose, and to found the Semon Lectureship 

 in Laryngology. Sir Felix received knighthood 

 at the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, and was created 

 K.C.V.O. in 1905. He was also the recipient of 

 numerous foreign decorations, and was an 

 honorary or corresponding member of many 

 medical societies. Many articles from his pen 

 have been published in medical journals and in the 

 reports of scientific societies, but he will be best 

 remembered as the founder and for twenty-five 

 years the editor of the Internationales Central- 

 hlatt fiir Laryngologie und Rhinologie. His own 

 work was chiefly in connection with cancer of the 

 throat and with the functions and diseases of the 

 motor nerves of the larynx. 



