CORNISH DOLMEXS. 99 



been discovered.^'' The nati^'es now inhabiting these islands 

 know nothing: of the origin of these structures, and regard them 

 with superstitioiis awe. These wonderful erections were raised 

 bv a vanished race, which, jjossessing vessels, jmssed fi'oni island 

 to island and then mysteriously disappeared. Were these 

 unknown Pacific voyagers connected with the dolmen people ? '^■ 

 and did the European dolmen builders pass the Southern Ocean, 

 and disappear by dying out in America ? We cannot say and it 

 is useless even to conjectui-e. 



Be this as it may, the dolmen builders are gone for ever. 

 Peasants declare that they may still be seen, at break of day, 

 moving around the great grey stones of the dolmens, bvit as the 

 daylight liecomes stronger they disappear. Theorists affirm that 

 they will appear in races degraded at present, when these shall 

 reach a certain stage of civilization ; and even some men of 

 science maintain that their descendants are still living as the 

 Khasias of Assam, or the Kabyles of Algeria. But these are all 

 idle fancies. The dolmen builders have passed away. Long 

 ages ago they departed from the shores of Northern and 

 AVestern Europe, and the might}' stone monuments which they 

 raised on moor and headland are now memorials of a vanished 

 race and mysteries to men of science. ^^ 



59. All excellent summary of the ruins on these islands is given by Mr. J. H. 

 Lamprey in The Report of the Norwich Coiigiess on Prehistoric .4rcheeoioi;y {tS68) 

 pp. 56-69. A good account of the structures on Easter Island is given in The 

 Smithsonian Report for i88g. In Casse/t's Magazine for July, 1890, will be found 

 some interesting drawings of the ruins on various Polynesian Islands. 



60. Journal of the Anthropological Society, vol. vi. (1877), p. 6 and note. 



61. The Neolithic age of the dolmens has also been most strongly supported by 

 Mr. J. Romilly Allen in Archa-ologia Canibiensis, vol. xvii. (5th series) 1900. 



