14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



goddess whom Herodotus called Urania. The Phenicians were very 

 much given to the worship of stones called baetylia, and wherever the 

 influence of this wide roving race of traders was exerted there these 

 monoliths are found. They are scattered along routes of trade of this 

 people and to a degree their distribution follows the same law as that 

 of Greek colonization so ably pointed out by Professor Myers. 

 Apparently the same paucity of these monuments is found on the coast 

 of the Adriatic Sea, for the same reason that it has no Greek colonic-. 

 These baetylia are most abundant where Greek and Phenician settle- 

 ments, especially the latter, are most numerous. 



Certain districts of India, as the Xeermul Jungle, are said to swarm 

 with monoliths and megalithic monuments. In Berrarv, alone. Dr. 







3£*2?« 



Fig. 7. — Carnac, Brittany, from Hunter-Duvar et alii. 



Forbes Watson counted 2,129 megalithic monuments, and menhirs, 

 cromlechs, and dolmens have been recorded in Sorapoor and Khasia ; 

 they also occur elsewhere among the hill tribes. The Todas in the 

 Nilghery Hills have large stone circles similar to those of England 

 and in the Deccan, in India, villages are said to have circles of larg 

 stones sacred to Vetac. Col. Leslie records stone circles in Ceylon, 

 and according to Palmer there are stone circles over 100 feet across 





near Alt. Sinai in Arabia, where Kohen mentions three large stone 

 circles consisting of lofty trilithons 10 feet high, standing on raised 

 foundations. Stone monuments occur in Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli 

 and along the whole coast of northern Africa ; Lieutenant Olive 

 has compared the megalithic structures found in Madagascar, among 

 the Hovas, with those of the Channel Islands. 



: 



