THE STONE CIKCLES OF CORNWALL AND SCOTIiAND. 379 



It has been pointed out that an observer on a clear night, looking 

 along the tops of the southern line of stones to the top of the 

 great central stone, will find it exactly in line with the polestar, 

 and there is also another stone which may indicate the point of 

 sunrise at Midsummer. 



In Orkney, at the Ring of Brogar and the Stenness Circle, 

 the alignments of outlying stones, &c., appear to be connected 

 with the position of the sun at different periods of the year, so 

 that these and the Oallernish monument may be classed with 

 Abury, Stonehenge, Stanton Drew, and other English circles as 

 " Sun and Star Circles." '^ 



In the north east of Scotland, however, the circles are 

 strikingly different fi-om those of the west of Scotland, and from 

 those of Cornwall, or any other locality. 



Inverness is the centre of a large number (perhaps not less 

 than forty originally) of circles of a special type, many of which 

 now present the appearance of two concentric circles or circular 

 walls of stones, about three feet high and wide, surrounded by 

 an open circle of larger pillar stones, the highest of which is 

 almost always at the south-west. The inner circles are in fact 

 the outer and inner walls of a chambered cairn, which is shown 

 in many instances by the walls of a passage connecting them 

 (nearly always on the south side) and by the masses of stones 

 between them, which are the remains of the cairn itself, and 

 which have sometimes overflowed the second circle or retaining 

 wall and choked up the chamber and passage. The few instances 



* Standing' Stones and Maeshowe of Stennes, by Magnus Spence. G-ardner, 

 26 Paternoster Square. 



Mr. Spence gives the following particular? : — 



From Maeshowe to the Barnhouse Stone is 42 chains, directly in the line 

 from thn chamber of Maeshowe tbrough the passage, which line is also that of 

 the midwinter sunset 10 days before the midwinter solstice. From the Barn- 

 house stone to Maeshowe the line is that of the midsummer sunrise. 



From the Barnhouse Stone to the Watchstone is 42 chains also, and from 

 the Watchstone to the Ring of Brogar is 63 chains further in the same line, 

 which in one direction is that of the midwinter sunrise, and in the reverse 

 direction that of the sunset at Beltane. 



From the Watchstone to Maeshowe is also 63 chains in the line of the 

 equinoctial sunrise and sunset, (see plan). 



