I 26 



NA TURE 



[June 7, 1906 



NOTES ON SOME CORNISH CIRCLES.' 



III. 



Boscaweii-nn, N. lot. 50° 5' 20". 



MV wife and I visited Bosca\ven-un on a pouring; 

 day, when it was impossible to make any observ- 

 ations. Mr. Horton Bolitho, who was with us, in- 

 troduced us to the tenant of Boscawen-noon — Mr. 

 Hannibal Rowe — who very kindly, in spite of the bad 

 weather, took us to the circle and the stone cross to 

 the N.E. of it. 



Lukis thus described this monument" : — 

 " The enclosed ground on which this circle stands 

 is uncultivated and heathy, and slopes gently to the 

 south. Twentv years ago a hedge ran across it and 

 bisected the circle. 



monolith enclosed within it was inclined, it is pos- 

 sible that it was upright at that time. 



" Dr. Stukeley's supposition was that it originally 

 stood upright, and that ' somebody digging b}- it to 

 find treasure disturbed it.' 



" On the north-east side there are two fallen stones 

 which Dr. Borlase, in 1749, imagined to have formed 

 part of a cromlech. It is more probable that they 

 are the fragments of a second pillar which was placed 

 to the north-east of the centre, and as far from it as 

 the existing one is. There are instances, I believe, 

 of two pillars occupying similar positions within a 

 circle. One of the stones, that marked C in my 

 plan, on the eastern side of the ring was prostrate 

 in the doctor's time. 



" -At a short distance to the south-east and south- 

 west there are cairns, which have been explored." 



-Photograph of the Ordn 



; Map showing >ight-Iine 



"This monument is composed of nineteen standin.g 

 stones, and is of an oval form, the longer diameter 

 being 80 feet and the shorter 71 feet 6 inches. One 

 of the stones is a block of quartz 4 feet high, and the 

 rest, which are of granite, vary from 2 feet 9 inches 

 to 4 feet 7 inches in height. On the west side there 

 is a gap, whence it is probable that a stone has been 

 removed. Within the area, 9 feet to the south-west 

 from the centre, is a tall monolith, 8 feet out of the 

 ground, which inclines to the north-east, and is 3 

 feet ^ inches out of the perpendicular. 



" In 1594 Camden describes this monument as 

 consisting of nineteen stones, 12 feet from each 

 other, with one much larger than the rest in the 

 tentre. It must have been much in the same con- 

 dition then as now. .\s he does not say that the 



1 Continued from v 1. Ixxiii., p. 563. 



"- " Prehistoric Stone Monuments of the British Isles : Cornwall," W. C. 



NO. I 9 10, VOL. 74] 



For this monument I have used the 6-inch map, as 

 the circle lies nearly at the centre, and all the out- 

 standing stones are within its limits. The heights 

 of the sky-line were measured by Mr. H. Bolitho at 

 a subsequent visit with a miner's dial; the resulting 

 declinations have been calculated by Mr. Rolston. 

 .\ theodolite survey will doubtless revise some of 

 them : — 



I gather from a report which Mr. H. Bolitho has 

 been good enough to send me that modern hedges 



