626 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



'hoeck is 300 feet in diameter and 30 feet high; Mane Lud 300 feet long, 

 350 wide and 30 feet high; Mont Saint Michel 320 feet long, 120 feet 

 wide and 80 feet high ; Kercado is about 100 feet in diameter and 20 

 feet high. 



MENHIRS. 



The dimensions of some of the menhirs is as follows : 

 Penmarck, 25 feet high;* Cadiou,28;t Mount Dol,31; Plouarzel, 36^; 

 Plesidy, 37, and Lochmariquer, 67^. The latter, fallen and broken, is 

 13^ feet wide and 7^ feet thick, and weighs 347 tons. There are seven 

 hundred and thirty-nine of these in Brittany. The menhir stands sin- 

 gle and alone. When arranged in parallel lines, as they sometimes are, 

 they are called alignments. 



ALIGNMENTS. 



The Province of Brittany has twenty-three alignments — one-half of 

 those in all France. The department of Morbihan andFinistere have, 

 together, seventeen of these. Oarnac has in its immediate neighbor- 

 borhood six out of these seventeen. These six alignments represent 

 three thousand menhirs. 



Menec, near Caruac, has eight hundred and thirty-five menhirs, ar- 

 ranged in eleven parallel lines, 3,778 feet in length, and 328 feet in 

 breadth at the head, tapering to 200 J feet at the tail. It has at its head 

 a cromlech of sixty-two menhirs. 



Kermario has six hundred and seventy-eight menhirs, no cromlech, 

 nine parallel lines, 4,037 feet in length — same width as Menec. 



Kerlescant has two hundred and fifty- eight menhirs, a cromlech 

 square of thirty-nine menhirs, thirteen lines, 1,000 feet in length — 393 

 feet width at the head and 164 at the tail. 



Erdeven has thirteen lines, one thousand one hundred and twenty 

 menhirs, 6,886 feet in length, 836 in width at the beginning, and 180 at 

 the end. 



About one-half of these have been overthrown and are lying on the 

 ground. Nearly 10 per cent, should be added for the menhirs known to 

 have been destroyed in modern or historic times. Without doubt the 

 gaps now existing were once filled. This would double, at least, the 

 number. These monuments have served as stone quarries for the 

 neighborhood, and doubtless the great castles and churches of the early 

 ages were built therefrom. 



There is on the menhirs no mark of tool or quarrying, yet I think 

 they were quarried. They are so much weathered that all marks are 

 worn away. Look at the weathering on the top of the menhir of Pen- 

 marck (PI. c. Fig. 2). ISTo traces of a quarry have been discovered, 

 though the granite of which the menhirs are formed is the local rock, 

 coming always and many times quite to the surface. The menhirs have 

 evidently been jilaiited. In most cases they stood on the surface with- 



* Plate c, Fig. 2. + Plate c, Fig. 1. t Platte c. Fig. 3. 



