C0RXI8H DOLMEXS. 93 



Malta is a good specimen of such (tonstnictioTis, ■"''' fur in it 

 trilitlions and yigantic stones, stand and lie toj^ether. Dr. Earth 

 also *" found trilitlions in Northern Africa, in the borderland of 

 Tripoli and Fezzan, which he ascribed to th(? Berber race. More 

 extraordinary is the great stone circle, seen by Palgrave, ^^ in 

 Central Arabia, which he said reminded him of Stoneheng-e. 

 The Arabs had not the slightest tradition of its in-igin and t(jld 

 Palgrave that there were other similar monuments in the 

 neighbourhood. E(|ually wonderful are the two gigantic 

 trilitlions on the island of Tongataboo in Polynesia. They are 

 constructed of a stone not found in the island, and have no ruins 

 near them. The uprights of one of these are 30 feet in height, 

 and the cross slab at the to]) is 26 feet in length. The uprights 

 of the other are 16 feet high, and the block which covers their 

 tops is 24 feet long. The natives of Tongataboo know nothing 

 of their origin, and ascribe them to the Supreme Being. *- 



Another i)roof of the great anticjuity of the dolmens in 

 Europe is found in the fact that dolmen building in Eurojie 

 had ceased before the beginning of written Eurojoean history. 

 I do not mean that no notice of their existence may be found, but 

 that thei'e are no references to any races building dolmens at the 

 time when our oldest histories were written. We have excellent 

 histories and geographical treatises written by Greek and Latin 

 authors, which describe at length the manners and customs of 

 many barbarous races in Europe, but these works contain no 

 reference to dolmens being erected at that time ; evidently this 

 is because such were no longer built, for the work of raising 

 so many erections of great size would have involved the labour 

 of vast multitudes of men in many countries in Europe, and 



39. See Dr. Leith Adams' The Xatitralist in the Xilc I'liHiy a»d the Maltese 

 Islands, pp. 239-247, al.so the Re po it of.\'t>rTt'irh Con^Tess iif.hrha'oloxy, 1868, pp. 406- 

 416 ; and Jomnal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. iv. (187^1, pp. 92-99. These 

 ruins have, without due rea.son, been assigned to the Phoenicians, and from their 

 resemblance to Stonehenge a Phcenician origin has also been ascribed to 

 vStonehenge ! 



40. Travels in Northern and Central Africa, chap. iii. 



41. 7ra7'els in Central and Eastern Arabia, vol. i., pp. ?^i, 252. 



42. One of these trilithons is figured and described in 7 lie Illustrated London 

 yews, for March loth, i(<6o. M. de Quatrefages al.so describes both at length, and 

 gives illustrations of them in his work Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Sauvases, pp. 

 255-260. 



