February 15, 1906] 



NA TURE 



367 



is that from this cause the angular height of the 

 sky-line along the alignment cannot be measured in 

 many cases. 



I will now proceed to refer to the chief sight-lines 

 seriatim. The first is that connecting the circle 

 which still exists with the site of the ancient one. 

 On this line exactly I found four points, a barrow 

 (L) which Borlase had missed (further from the circle 

 than his barrow A), the site, the present circle, and 

 the fougou ; azimuth from centre of circle N. 64 E. 

 and S. 64 W. This is the May year line found 

 at Stonehenge, Stenness, the Hurlers and Stanton 

 Drew. 



In connection with this there is another sight-line 

 which must not be passed over ; from the circle the 

 bearing of the church of St. Burian is about N. 64 

 YV. ; like the fougou it is situated on a hill, and near it 

 are ancient crosses which I suspect were menhirs 

 first and crosses afterwards. 1 However this may be, 

 we see in this azimuth of 64 three times repeated 

 that the May and August sunrises and sunsets and 

 the February and November sunsets were provided for. 



ploughed up and the stones removed. It is to prevent 

 a similar fate happening to the " Merry Maidens 

 themselves that Lord Falmouth will not allow the 

 field in which they stand to be ploughed, and all 

 antiquarians certainly owe him a debt of gratitude 

 for this and other proofs of his interest in antiquities. 

 Mr. Bolitho carefullv marked the site thus indicated 

 on a copy nf tin- 25-inch ma]). I shall subsequently 

 show that the circle which formerly existed here, 

 like the others named, was located on an important 

 sight-line. 



Mr. Horton Bolitho was good enough to make a 

 careful examination of the barrows A and B of Bor- 

 lase.' In A (S. 69° YV.) he found a long stone still 

 lying in the barrow, suggesting that the barrow 

 had been built round it, and that the apex of the 

 barrow formed a new alignment. In B there is either 

 another recumbent long stone or the capstone of a 

 dolmen. This suggests work for the local anti- 

 quarians. 



I should state that there may be some doubt about 

 barrow A, for there are two not far from each other 

 with approximate azimuths S. 69 

 W. and S. 64 W. The destruc- 

 tion of these and other barrows was 

 probably the accompaniment of the 

 reclamation of waste lands and the 

 consequent interference with anti- 

 quities which in Cornwall has 

 mostly taken place since 1800. 



But it did not begin then, nor 

 has it been confined to barrows. 

 Dr. Borlase in his parochial memor- 

 anda under date September 29, 

 1752, describes a monolith 20 feet 

 above ground, and planted 4 feet 

 in it, the " Men Peru " (stone of 

 sorrow) in the parish of Constan- 

 tine. A farmer acknowledged that 

 he had cut it up. and had made 

 twenty gate-posts out of it. 



My wife and I visited the Merry 

 Maidens at Easter, 1905, for the 

 purpose of making a reconnaissance. 

 Mr. Horton Bolitho and Mr. Cor- 

 nish were good enough to accom- 50 \ \- \ 

 pany us. \ \ 



On my return to London I began : 4 ; \ \ 



work on the 25-inch Ordnance map, -_ , ... 1( , \ \ 



and subsequently Colonel R. C, 4a "" : " ' ■ 



Hellard, R.E., director of the ... - ,.- = ,, -,. «. , ,j. t3 :.r« s 



Ordnance Survey, was kind enough 



to send me the true azimuths of the Fig. 2.— The place of the May sunrise in British latitudes. 



Pipers. In October, 1905, Mr. 



Horton Bolitho and Captain Henderson, whose help 1 With regard to the other sight-lines I 

 at the Hurlers I have already had an opportunity of with that of the Pipers as it is quite obviously con- 



. MAY-YEAR. 



(£.hs:ii.i.--16'20'st) 

 AMPLITUDES. 



X 



acknowledging, made a much more complete surve 

 of the adjacent standing stones and barrows. 



In this survey they not only made use of the 25-inch 

 map, but of the old plan given bv VV. C. Borlase 

 dating from about 1S70. Although the outstanding 

 stones shown by Borlase remain, some of the barrows 

 indicated by him have disappeared. 



In January, 1906, my wife and I paid other visits 

 to the monuments, and Mr. Horton Bolitho was again 

 good enough to accompany us. Thanks to him per- 

 mission had been obtained to break an opening in 

 the high wall-boundary which prevented any view 

 along the " Pipers " sight-line. I may here add that 

 unfortunately in Cornwall the field boundaries often 

 consist of high stone walls topped by furze, so that 

 the outstanding stones once visible from the circles 

 can now no longer be seen from them ; another trouble 



' " Na-nia," p. 214. 

 NO. 1894, VOL. 73] 



nected with the eastern circle only ; the stones could 

 not have been seen from the other on account of rising 

 ground. The barrow shown in this direction by 

 Borlase has now entirely disappeared, and the earth 

 has evidently been spread over the surrounding field ; 

 its surface is therefore higher than formerly, so that 

 when the opening was made in the wall the top of 

 the nearest piper could not be seen from the centre 

 of the circle : an elevation of about 2 feet from the 



,,la 



" Now the carrying out of their order was lett to the country parsons, 

 and partly because they had themselves been brought up to respect these 

 stones, and partly because the execution of the decree would have brought 

 down a storm upon their heads, they contented themselves with putting a 

 cross on top of the stones." — "Book of Brittany," by Baring-Gould, 



