Professor T. Rupert Jones — Hidory of Sarsens. 115 



V. — History op the Sarsens. 



By Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 



{f!o)icli(dedfromp. 59.) 



II. (8) iTeni.— 1862. Mr. W. H. Bensted, in the Geologist, vol. v 

 (1862), pp. 449, 450, states : " The Druid Sandstone, of which 

 Kit's Coty House, Stonehenge, and many other Druidical remains are 

 composed, is found scattered in great blocks over the surface of the 

 Chalk Hills, or buried superficially in beds of clay retained in the 

 hollows on the summits of the escarpments." These stones, he 

 added, are the same as the Grey wethers of Berks and Wilts ; and 

 are occasionally pebbly, like the Hertfordshire Puddingstones. 



1872. In Fergusson's "Eude Stone Monuments," 1872, pp. 116- 

 120, some of the best specimens of Sarsens that remain as relics 

 of prehistoric monuments in Kent are noticed, especially those near 

 Aylesford, on the Medway. 



1894. Thomas Wright, in his "Wanderings of an Antiquary, 

 chiefly in the track of the Romans in Britain," 1894, pp. 17(5-178, 

 describes in detail some large circular pits that have been filled 

 with flints and capped with broad Sarsens, on Aylesford Common ; 

 these, he thought, were probably sepulchral, and may have had 

 a chamber opening out of the side at the bottom. 



1900. Some small Sarsens from the gravel of the Darent at 

 Shoreham, in Kent, show many perforations of rootlets. — E.. A. B. 



(9) Surrey.— 1'&14:. T. Webster: Trans. Geol. Soc, vol. ii, 

 pp. 224, 225. At Pirbright, Surrey, loose blocks of stone similar to 

 what have been called Grey wethers. Many loose masses of this rock 

 lie scattered on the surface of the Chalk country, particularly in 

 Berkshire and Wiltshire. Stonehenge chiefly composed of it, and 

 found on the spot. No doubt close resemblance to the siliceous 

 cement of the Hertfordshire Puddingstone. 



1847. J. Prestwich. The position of the Sarsen Stones in the 

 Bagshot Sands : Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. iii, p. 382. In the 

 Lower Bagshot Sands, " a few concretionary masses of saccharine 

 sandstone, which are more compact and harder than those in the 

 Upper Sands," and by no iiieans so abundant. " Sandstone 

 concretions at o " in the diagram, fig. 3, of Frimley Kidge, in the 

 UiDper Sands, at p. 382. 



1876. The Sarsens in the artificially picturesque rockery of the 

 waterfall at the east end of Virginia Water are said to have been 

 brought from the neighbouring heath ; and those of the adjoining 

 cavern or grotto from a cromlech there. Murray's " Handbook of 

 Surrey," 2nd ed., p. 137. 



1895. A Sarsen-stone footbridge over a streamlet at Frimley 

 Green, Surrey, carries the footpath from the fields on one side of the 

 stream that runs down a lane, to the path along the other side of 

 the little stream, which runs beside the lane from Frimley Green, 

 and across some fields to the border of Surrey and Hants near the 

 Farnborough Station. The length of the l)ridge-stone is 4^^ or 

 5 feet; the width is about 21 feet equally all along; thickness 



