January 26, 1905 J 



NATURE 



299 



the position on the horizon at which the sun rose on 

 that particular day of the year, and no other. 



Now, if there were no change in the position of 

 the sun, that, of course, would go on for ever and 

 ever ; but, fortunately for archaologists, there is a 

 slight change in the position of the sun, as there is 

 in the case of a star, but for a different reason; the 

 planes of the ecliptic and of the equator undergo a 

 slight change in the angle included between them. 

 So far as we know, that angle has been gradually 

 getting less for many thousands of years, so that, in 

 the case of Stonehenge, if we wish to determine the 

 date, having no stars to help us, 

 the only thing that we can hope to 

 get any information from is the very 

 slow change of this angle; that, 

 therefore, was the special point 

 which Mr. Penrose and I were 

 anxious to study at Stonehenge, for 

 the reason that we seemed in a posi- 

 tion to do it there more conveniently 

 than anywhere else in Britain. 



But while the astronomical con- 

 ditions are better at Stonehenge 

 than elsewhere, the ruined state of 

 the ;monument makes accurate 

 measures very difficult. 



Great age and the action of 

 weather are responsible for much 

 havoc, so that very many of the 

 stones are now recumbent, as will 

 be gathered from the accompanying 

 plan, for which I am indebted to 

 Mr. Lewis, who described the con- 

 dition of the monument in 1901 in 

 Man. 



But the real destructive agent has 

 been man himself ; savages could 

 not have played more havoc with 

 the monument than the English 

 who have visited it at different 

 times for different purposes. It is 

 said the fall of one great stone in 

 1620 was caused bv some excava- 

 tions of the then Duke of Bucking- 

 ham ; the fall of another in 1797 

 was caused by gipsies digging a 

 hole in which to shelter, and boil 

 their kettle; many of the stones have 

 been used for building walls and 

 bridges ; masses weighing from 

 56 lb. downwards have been broken 

 off by hammers or cracked off as a 

 result of fires lighted by excur- 

 sionists. 



It appears that the temenos wall 

 or vallum, which is shown complete 

 in Hoare's plan of 1810, is now 

 broken down in many places by 

 vehicles indiscriminately driven over 

 it. Indeed, its original importance 

 has now become so obliterated that 

 many do not notice it as part of the structure — that, 

 in fact, it bears the same relation to the interior stone 

 circle as the nave of St. Paul's does to the Lady 

 Chapel. 



It is within the knowledge of all interested in 

 archaeology that not long ago Sir Edmund Antrobus, 

 the owner of Stonehenge, advised by the famous 

 Wiltshire local society, the Society for the Protection 

 of Ancient Buildings' and the Society of Antiquariesj, 

 enclosed the monument in order to preserve it from 



NO. 1839, VOL. 71] 



further wanton destruction, and — a first step in the way 

 of restoration — with the skilled assistance of Prof. 

 Gowland and Messrs. Carruthcrs, Detmar Blow, and 

 Stallybrass, set upright the most important menhir, 

 which threatened to fall or else break off at one of the 

 cracks. This menhir, the so-called " leaning stone," 

 once formed one of the uprights of the trilithon the 

 fall of the other member of which was said to have 

 been caused by the digging and researches of the 

 Duke of Buckingham in 1620. The latter, broken in 

 two pieces, and the supported lintel, now lie prostrate 

 across the altar stone. 



,.-Copy of H 



h the Avenue. 



This piece of work was carried out with consum- 

 mate skill and care, and most important conclusions, 

 as we shall see in a subsequent " Note," were derived 

 from the minute inquiry into the conditions revealed 

 in the excavations which were necessary for the proper 

 conduct of the work. 



Let us hope that we have heard the last of the 

 work of devastators, and even that, before long, some 

 of the other larger stones, now inclined or prostrate, 

 may be set upright. 



