536 



NATURE 



[April 6, 1905 



from the central one. If a line be drawn uniting the 

 centres of the extreme Circles, the centre of the 

 middle ring is found to be 12 feet 6 inches to the 

 west of it. 



" These Circles have been greatly injured. The 

 largest consists of q erect and 5 prostrate stones ; 

 the north Circle has 6 erect and 6 prostrate, and a 

 fragment of a seventh ; and the south has 3 erect and 

 8 prostrate. In Dr. Borlase's time 

 they were in a slightly better con- 

 dition. A pen-and-ink sketch made 

 by him, which is e.xtant in one of 

 Dr. Stukeley's volumes of original 

 drawings, represents the middle 

 Circle as consisting of 7 erect and 

 10 prostrate stones; the north of 10 

 erect and 6 prostrate ; and the south 

 of 3 erect and 9 prostrate. The 

 stone to the east of that marked C 

 in the plan of the middle Circle is 

 the highest, and is 5 feet 8 inches 

 out of the ground, and appears to 

 have been wantonly mutilated re- 

 cently. Two of the prostrate stones 

 of the north Circle are 6 feet 6 

 inches in length. 



" About 17 feet south from the 

 centre of the middle Circle there is 

 a prostrate stone 4 feet long and 15 

 inches wide at one end. It may 

 possibly have been of larger dimen- 

 sions formerly, and been erected on 

 the spot where it now lies, but as 

 Dr. Borlase has omitted it in his 

 sketch it is probably a displaced 

 stone of the ring. 



" If we allow, as before, an 

 average interval of 12 feet between 

 the stones, there will have been 

 about 28 pillars in the north, 26 in 

 the south, and 33 in the middle 

 Circle. 



" At a distance of 409 feet west- 

 wards from K in the middle Circle 

 there are 2 stones, 7 feet apart, 

 both inclined northwards. One is 

 4 feet II inches in height out of the 

 ground, and overhangs its base 2 

 feet 7 inches ; the other is 5 feet 

 4 inches high, and overhangs 18 

 inches." 1 



I next come to Stanton Drew. 



I will begin by giving a short 

 account of the stones which remain, 

 abridged from the convenient pam- 

 phlet prepared for the British Asso- 

 ciation meeting at Bristol in 1898 

 by Prof. Lloyd Morgan. 



The circles at .Stanton Drew, 

 though far less imposing than those 

 of .4vebury and Stonehenge, are 

 thought to be more ancient than are 

 the latter, for the rough-hevi'n up- 

 rights and plinths of~ Stonehenge 

 bear the marks of a higher and pre- 

 sumably later stage of mechanical 

 development. Taken as a group, 

 the Somersetshire circles are in 

 some respects more complex than their better known 

 rivals in Wiltshire. There are three circles, from two 

 of which " avenues " proceed for a short distance in a 

 more or less easterly direction ; there is a shattered but 

 large dolmen — if we may so regard the set of stones 



one Monumenls of the liritish Is!cs : Cornw.-\Il " By 

 , M.A., F.S.A., Rector of Watli, Yorkshire. P. 4. 



called " the cove "; and there are outlying stones — the 

 " quoit," and those in Middle Ham — which bear such 

 relations to the circles as to suggest that they too 

 formed parts of some general scheme of construction. 



The " quoit," lying in an orchard by the roadside, 

 has nothing very impressive about its appearance — a 

 recumbent mass of greyish sandstone ; but it seems 

 to be a brick in the Stanton Drew building. Bv some 



NO. 1849, VOL. 71] 



and Avenues at Stan 

 giving approximate 



regarded as a sarsen block from Wiltshire, it is more 

 probably derived from the Old Red Sandstone of Men- 

 dip. In any case it is not, geologically speaking, in 

 situ ; nor has it reached its present position by natural 

 agency. 



With regard to two of the megalithic circles, at first 

 sight the constituent stones seem irregularly dotted 



