508 Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 



addition to the earthen banks. The native forts of New Zealand, 

 which must have been very much like our circular earth-works, 

 were not only surrounded, but divided by growing hedges, which 

 it was extremely difficult to penetrate ; but I know of no remains 

 of such in the Scotch forts. Of course they are often of loose 

 stones, on which nothing would grow ; though till there were 

 cart-roads, the conveying of stones along the line of a dyke 

 would not be easy, and the turf was used instead. In Gaelic, the 

 fence of branches is called " barrun," that is topping. 



The abundance of large stones in the south-west of Brittany is 

 curiously shown by one kind of fence which I did not succeed in 

 seeing, but which my companion had seen, probably near 

 Vannes ; a fence entirely of standing- stones of moderate size, 

 upright stones joined together by a line of wattles or withes 

 near the top ! In the dry-stone dykes, when a large stone occurs, 

 it is put upright, not as a binder. 



I find banks, that is fail- dykes, are still in use for permanent 

 fences in Hampshire. The stones of Stonehenge, further inland, 

 are said in the country to have been brought from about twenty 

 miles off. That is far more singular than any of the accounts, I 

 think, represent it. I am convinced it has been a roofed building, 

 as it is only about a hundred feet across, and the distance between 

 the inner aud outer circles cannot be more than twenty-five feet ; 

 while the centre space might perfectly have been covered in with 

 converging tree-stems of about that length. The lintels, or con- 

 necting stones, have no meaning if there was no roof. The inner 

 and taller circle is about the height of the wall of a two-story 

 house, but the wall-spaces are of enormous single stones, cut 

 roughly into long slabs. Like some of the more imposing, 

 because more massive, monoliths of Brittany, I should suppose 

 these were concealed from the outside when the building was in 

 use. The so-called altar-stone is evidently a long fragment of 

 one of the fallen stones of the inner circle. 



No human remains I believe have ever been found in Stone- 

 henge, as far as it has been examined ; and it is said at least 

 that they have been invariably found in the circles of open 

 detached stones, when they have been thoroughly searched. It 

 may be added, with reference to the Breton lines of stones, that 

 some of the English " avenues " seem to be appendages to these 

 honorary circles ; but I observe a case, mentioned in the Cam- 

 brian " Avchaoologia," in which the two lines of stones are too 



