On St Michael’s Mount and the Phoenicians. 175 
then, and had been for many centuries before, the greatest 
and most extensive navigators in the world !* 
Let us proceed with the quotation. “ They say that 
Latona was born there, and therefore that they worship 
Apollo above allother gods. . . . They say, moreover, 
that Apollo once in nineteen years comes into the island, in 
which space of time the stars perform their courses and re- 
turn to the same point, and therefore the Greeks call the 
revolution of nineteen years “‘ the Great Year.” This cycle 
of nineteen years, at the end of which the new and full 
moons happen within an hour and a half of the same times 
of the year, as they did at the beginning, and by which 
Christians have always regulated their moveable festivals, 
was thus apparently known to the Druids in Britain ages 
before Meton discovered it in 4308.c. Toit, therefore (and 
not to the twelve months in the year and the seven days 
in the week, as Borlase imagined), the four ‘“ Druidical 
Temples,” within six miles of Penzance, may have pointed. 
These consisted originally each of nineteen detached stones 
or unhewn pillars placed upright, from three to five feet 
above ground, in rude circles, the smallest circle being 
about sixty-five, the largest about eighty feet in diameter. 
Hach circle is vulgarly, and has been immemorially, called 
the ‘‘nine maidens,” an abbreviation doubtless for “‘ nine- 
teen maidens.” This I mention because some modern 
authors have, contrary to Borlase, contended that the 
original number of pillars forming each circle was more 
than nineteen, as it has a space between two of its pillars 
much wider than that between any other two. But this 
widest space may have been originally intended for the 
passing in and out of religious processions. The name 
Belerion, anciently given to the Landsend district, and the 
name Druids, by which the priests there were called, be- 
cause they performed their religious rites within groves of 
_ oaks (Hos, iv. 13), as did the worshippers of Bel or Baal in 
Palestine, are quite in keeping with the supposed Phoenician 
origin of these four very ancient temples. 
* Josh, xix. 29; Is. xxiii. 8, 7, 8; Ezek. xxvii. 3, 4, 12, 38 It is stated in 
Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates (8th edition) under the word T1n—*“ The 
Pheenicians traded with England for this article more than 1100 years B.c.” 
