38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



gation of the monoliths and colossi of other Polynesian islands points 

 to the same conclusion regarding' them. 



Wherever we find the megalithic pillars in the Pacific we find them 

 connected with a cult of the dead, and as we pass westward across the 

 Pacific to the architectural wonders of Java where the stone working 

 becomes more elaborate we find the same connection. The mega- 

 lithic monuments of Polynesia have been repeatedly likened to the 

 cromlechs and alligned stones of Stonehenge in England and Carnac 

 in Brittany. 



In the Penrhyn Islands there are small circles of stone described by 

 Mr. Lamont that enclose an area some hundred yards square, " a sort 

 of Stonehenge in a small way," and there are megalithic tombs in the 

 Tonga Islands described in the Natural History of Man by Mr. Wood. 

 The Australians likewise had stone circles with an upright stone slab 

 in the middle. 



In the Sandwich ( Hawaiian) Islands we find the megaliths limited 

 to walled enclosures like the pagan temple at Waikiki, but in Rapatiti 

 there are massive stone forts. In the Friendly Islands, near the ancient 

 metropolis of Tongatabu, there are 19 truncate pyramids, the stones 

 composing which average 18 feet long by 5^ feet high and 3 feet 

 thick weighing 20 tons each. Near these pyramids is a trilithon the 

 uprights of which are 14 feet high, 8 feet wide and nearly 4 feet thick, 

 weighing 15 tons, the cross-piece being somewhat smaller. They 

 were transported over 3 miles by savages supposed to be ignorant of 

 mechanical appliances. 



In the Ladrones there are rows of stone columns, called the " houses 

 of the ancients " ; and massive walls built of basaltic prisms, 300 feet 

 long and 35 feet high, exist in Ponape of the Caroline group. 



Of the many archeological problems presented by the islands of the 

 Pacific none are more instructive than the great heathen temple 

 51 feet by 39 feet in size, situated in a secluded valley in the center 

 of Opala in Samoa. The adjacent tombs of the Tonga chiefs on these 

 islands are marked with monoliths of enormous size. 



NEW WORLD MEGALITHIC EPOCH 



Mr. E. G. Squier in a brief pamphlet, " The Primeval Monuments 

 of Peru compared with those in other parts of the World," published 

 in the American Naturalist in 1870, arrived at the far reaching truth 

 that megalithic monuments " seem to have been the spontaneous pro- 

 ductions of the primitive man in all parts of the world, and not neces- 



