150 Megalithic Structures [April 



which category the passage-graves may be included. Nilsson has 

 clearly pointed out how the gallery or half-cross tombs are close 

 imitations, if not actual adaptations, of the original dwelling-houses 

 of the ancient Pre- Celtic Scandinavians, a people not dissimilar in 

 their mode of life to the present Arctic nations of Esquimaux ; also 

 how these galleried-huts were but make-shifts in the plains for 

 subterranean caves and grottoes in the mountain region from 

 whence their race originally sprang. 



As regards the cromlechs in the Channel Islands, their chief 

 characteristics may be briefly stated as follows : — • 



(1.) The large western chamber, composed of large, erect, and, at 

 least on the inner side, flat slabs of granite,* from six to eight feet 

 high, arranged in a circular or horse- shoe form, supporting an 

 enormous capstone (the lower side of which is also flat), the largest 

 stone in the whole structure. At the west extremity of this 

 chamber is the largest of the erect slabs, a flat polygonal stone, as 

 broad as it is high, the remaining uprights being generally less 

 broad than they are high. This chamber is sometimes divided into 

 smaller compartments or kists. A good example of these divisions 

 is to be found in the cromlech at Mont Ube, Jersey, from which, 

 unhappily, the capstones have been removed many years since. 



(2.) The covered gallery or passage leading to the great west 

 chamber from the east. The stones forming this, both erect side 

 blocks and granite imposts, being largest at the western end, and 

 diminishing in height, size, and distance apart towards the eastern 

 entrance. This avenue is sometimes so modified as to seem a mere 

 prolongation of the west chamber, the capstones diminishing in 

 regular order from the huge block at the west to the small one at 

 the east, so that the whole structure is bottle-shaped. The gallery 

 is frequently divided by stone partitions, and there are indications 

 of thresholds where doors may have existed.f 



(3.) The addition of kists outside the main structure, of a later 

 period ; notably conspicuous in the cromlech De-hus. 



(4.) The structure surrounded' with a stone circle, the centre of 

 this circle generally in the western chamber ; the circles are of the 

 same dimensions throughout the islands, viz. 60 feet. From this 

 circle or peristalith in some cases are traces of serpentine avenues 

 or approaches, probably indicating similar forms to those of Abury. 

 These avenues are seen best at L'Ancresse. At the Pocquelaye 

 Cromlech there are remains of a double stone wall encircling the 

 structure ; between these are four small uprights, which seem as 

 though they had formed a portion of a peristalith .} The perista- 

 lith of the Couperon Cromlech is oval. 



* Except the Couperon Cromlech, Jersey, which is built of local conglomerate, 

 t Compare Sir John Lubbock's ' Description of the Danish Tumulus in the 

 Island of Moen,' p. 105 ' Pre-historic Times.' 



% See view in ' Illustrated London News.' January loth, 1870. 



