oe REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
Rough Tor at an angle of about 50° with the ground. When erect it 
was about 1:8 foot above the turf. Its maximum basal width is 4°6 feet, 
so that it is wider than any of the other stones comprising the Stannon 
group. 
Ill. General Remarks. 
From the fact that neither the Fernacre nor the Stannon Circle are 
true circles,! it has been contended that they may be earlier in date than 
the circles in the southern division of the group, viz., the Stripple and 
Trippet Stones and the Leaze Circle. Such an assumption can only be 
proved by excavations. I am not aware that any remains of human 
workmanship have been found in any of these circles, except the few flint 
flakes and a calcined flint in the excavations conducted at the Stripple 
Stones in 1905. As the Fernacre and Stannon circles are in close 
proximity to the sites of dozens of hut-circles, it is probable that the two 
classes of ancient sites are contemporaneous in date, and that the inhabi- 
tants of the huts used the circles for various ceremonies and observances. 
These circles might repay excavating if done carefully, but stone circles 
in England, with the exception of Stonehenge and Arbor Low, have pro- 
duced little in the way of relics. 
In cart-tracks and along a little runnel of water just below the hut- 
circles on the southern slope of Rough Tor, and between it and the 
Fernacre Circle, Mrs. Gray found within half an hour six flint chips, a 
small scraper, two cores, a flake with secondary chipping, and a flint knife, 
nearly 2 inches long, with traces of considerable chipping. 
The stones in the five circles are of granite. Those forming the 
Stripple and Trippet Stones and the Leaze Circle are for the most part 
solid and well cut, with quadrangular cross-section. The stones making 
up the Fernacre and Stannon Circles are, on the other hand, smaller as a 
whole,? and with few exceptions are rough and irregular in outline. The 
three southern circles, and especially the Trippet Stones and the Leaze 
Circle, have the megaliths placed at fairly regular intervals apart. The 
Stripple Stones appear to have been arranged about 164 feet apart ; the 
Trippet Stones have intervals of 123 feet dividing the stones ; and the 
spaces between the stones of the Leaze Circle average 12 feet. The 
Fernacre and Stannon Circles, on the other hand, present uneven out- 
lines, and the remaining stones in some places occur in close order, in 
others at irregular intervals. Instances of similar circles are recorded. 
Withypool, which I have surveyed, is a recent discovery of the sort.* 
Mr. C. W. Dymond has figured Cumbrian circles of this character ;4 they 
include Long Meg and her Daughters, the Keswick, Swinside,® and 
Eskdale Circles. The former of these (average diameter 332 feet) has a 
similar flattening on the N. side to that of the Stannon Circle The com- 
paratively small circle of Boscawen-tin, in the parish of Buryan, near 
Penzance, is elliptical in shape ; in this case the stones follow the line of 
a true circle on the N.E. and 8.W., but in the other parts they bulge out. 
1 How easily these rings could have been made true circles by means of a central 
pole and a cord for radius. 
2 The stones of the Stannon Circle are rather larger and more uniform than those 
of Fernacre. 
3 Proc. Som. Arch. and N. H. Soc., Ui1., pt. ii., 42-50, and plan. 
4 Journ, Brit. Arch. Assoc., vol. xxxiv., 31-6. 
5 Trans. Cumb. and West. Antig. Soc., N.S., ii. p. 55 et seq. 
