RUDE STONE MONUMENTS ON BODMIN MOOR. Ill 



on the particular spots they occupy, indeed, I think a better site 

 might have been found for most of them, therefore I cannot 

 imagine that these three lines of circles and hills can have been 

 formed accidentally in placing only five circles ; in other words, 

 I see no escape from the conclusion that each of these circles was 

 placed on the exact spot it occupies, because that spot was in a 

 certain direction from the hills I have mentioned. I say from 

 the hills rather than from the other circles, because the only 

 circles, that are visible from each other are the Stripple Stones 

 and Trippet Stones. 



In support of this conclusion I may add that I have found 

 a similar relation between circles and hills elsewhere. At the 

 Meinieu-Hirion circle near Penmaenmawr two large stones in the 

 valley, now prostrate, but probably once upright, direct the eye 

 toward a hill in the line of the Midsummer sunrise. A straight 

 line drawn in the same direction, from the Mitchell' s-Fold circle 

 in Shropshire, to the " Hoarstone " or Marshpool circle, passes 

 over Stapeley Hill, midway between the two circles, and termi- 

 nates in a group of three low hills to the north-east of the 

 " Hoarstone." At the Swinside circle in Cumberland a straight 

 line may be taken in the same direction from the top of Black- 

 Combe, the most prominent hill near it, through the circle 

 to a group of three low hills to the north-east of it. The circle 

 near Keswick in Cumberland is so placed, that Skiddaw and 

 Blencathra, the two highest mountains round, are, respectively, 

 34 to 35 degrees west and east from north of it, Blencathra pre- 

 senting the appearance of a triple summit ; these are too far 

 north to have any connection with the sunrise, but would direct 

 attention to the revolution of the Great Bear round the pole-star. 



The relative positions of the circles and the hills, as stated 

 above, are facts which anyone may verify, either at the circles or 

 from the Ordnance maps. As to the meaning of the facts, it is 

 open to everyone to form his own opinion. The relation of the 

 " Friar's Heel," and, indeed, of the whole structure of Stone- 

 henge, to the rising sun at Midsummer is well-known, and it is 

 my opinion that, while outlying stones were used as skymarks 

 on flat horizons like that at Stonehenge, the hills themselves 

 were used as skymarks in hilly countries. It is true that hills 



