RTTDE STONE MONUMENTS OF CORNWALL. 193 



presence of phallic rites in the West in the times under review, 

 yet the wide-spread character of that cult rather suggests such 

 presence, and if so, the further association therewith of some of 

 our menhirs would be inevitable. 



With regard, then, to the menhir question generally, these 

 considerations are, I think, as far as we can safely, or at any rate 



wisely, go. 



Cromlechs and Kistvaens. 



I cannot do better than introduce what I have to say 

 touching cromlechs — a word which I use as it has been commonly 

 used in England, as equivalent to the dolmen or table-stone of 

 the continental archaeologists — by quoting the graphic summary 

 of Capt. Conder, which prefaces his account of the remarkable 

 dolmen fields of Moab.* 



"It is evident that an erection of two or more stones, with a 

 flat stone roof or table above, may have had several uses. It 

 might be an altar, or tomb, or a dwelling house . , . We have 

 to consider not only trilithons and stone boxes of four, five, and 

 six stones, but also galleries, like those called " Grrottes des 

 Fees " on the banks of the Loire, built of perhaps a dozen 

 stones in all, together with the great chambered tumuli of the 

 bronze and late-stone age, the Kune beds of Scandinavia, the 

 giant beds of Ireland or of Ammon, the demi dolmens of France 

 and Moab ; while the cists in the tumuli of the iron age, and 

 the Arab trilithon altars of our own time, are but degenerate 

 representatives of the older dolmens. It is clear that no hasty 

 generalization is possible in such a case, and that dolmens are 

 structures of primitive architecture, which may include more 

 than one class, and may have been built for more than one 

 purpose." 



The point for us to consider is the class or classes to which the 

 Cornish cromlechs belong. What such may be elsewhere is 

 not absolutely essential to our enquiry. 



One of the first points for decision is whether there is any 

 real distinction between a free standing cromlech, and one that 

 is or has been covered by a mound or cairn : which really 



* Heth a7id Moah, 222. But Capt. Conder figures as an Arab trilithon, 

 what is really the doorway of a hut circle — the lintel surmounting the door 

 posts. 



