44 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



borough had set in a ring. I have seen small fluores in flints (sparkles in the hollow of flints) like 

 diamonds ; but when they are applied to the diamond mill they are so soft that they come to nothing. 

 But, had he that first found out the way of cutting transparent pebbles (which was not long before 

 the late civill warres) kept it a secret, he might have got thousands of pounds by it ; for there is no 

 way to distinguish it from a diamond but by the mill. 



I shall conclude with the stones called the Grey Wethers ; which lye scattered all over the downes 

 about Maryborough, and incumber the ground for at least seven miles diameter ; and in many 

 places they are, as it were, sown so thick, that travellers in the twylight at a distance take them to 

 be flocks of sheep (wethers) from whence they have their name. So that this tract of ground looks 

 as if it had been the scene where the giants had fought with huge stones against the Gods, as is 

 described by Hesiod in his Qeiiyona. 



They are also (far from the rode) commonly called Sarsdens, or Sarsdon stones. About two or 

 three miles from Andover is a village called Sersden, i. e. Csars dene, perhaps don : Caesar's dene, 

 Caesar's plains ; now Salisbury plaine. (So Salisbury, Ccesaris Jlttrgus.) But I have mett with this 

 kind of stones sometimes as far as from Christian Malford in Wilts to Abington ; and on the 

 downes about Royston, &c. as far as Huntington, are here and there those Sarsden-stones. They 

 peep above the ground a yard and more high, bigger and lesser. Those that lie in the weather are 

 so hard that no toole can touch them. They take a good polish. As for their colour, some are a 

 kind of dirty red, towards porphyry ; some perfect white ; some dusky white ; some blew, like deep 

 blew marie ; some of a kind of olive greenish colour ; but generally they are whitish. Many of them 

 are mighty great ones, and particularly those in Overtoil Wood. Of these kind of stones are framed 

 the two stupendous antiquities of Anbury and Stone-heng. 1 have heard the minister of Aubury 

 say those huge stones may be broken in what part of them you please without any great trouble. 

 The manner is thus : they make a fire on that line of the stone where they would have it to crack ; 

 and, after the stone is well heated, draw over a line with cold water, and immediately give a smart 

 knock with a smyth's sledge, and it will breake like the collets at the glasse-house. [This system of 

 destruction is still adopted on the downs in the neighbourhood of Avebury. Many of the upright 

 stones of the great Celtic Temple in that parish have been thus destroyed in my time. J. B.] 



Sir Christopher Wren sayes they doe pitch (incline) all one way, like arrowes shot. Quaere de 

 hoc, and if so to what part of the heavens they point ? Sir Christopher thinks they were cast up by 

 a vulcano. 



