ARCHITECTURE. 111 
neath served for the celebration of mysteries, which only the initiated 
were allowed to witness. They may also have served as dwellings for the 
priests, as would appear from their subdivision into chambers. 
4, Natura Arrars. We have considered the dolmen and the covered 
ways as sacrificial altars, but there were still others which were arranged 
with less labor, for nature herself erected them. Greater or smaller blocks 
of stone that lay upon the ground, either brought by men’s hands or found 
there, were consecrated to the gods of the Druids, and used as sacrificial 
altars. Such is the Druid altar between Brelevenez and Cleder (Finis- 
terre) (jig. 6), which is nothing but a great stone of 216 cubic feet in size 
and brought to the spot by men. Upon its top is a square basin of some 14 
inches in breadth and 4 inches in depth, made with a chisel, or some similar 
instrument. From this basin a conduit leads obliquely off on one side. 
Upon the rim of the basin some runes are cut. Near the stone stands one 
of the rude stone crosses by which the first Christians consecrated these 
altars to obliterate the remembrance of the bloody gods of their ancestors. 
In England there are many such natural altars. 
5. Prercep Srones. In France and more frequently in England, and 
especially in Wales and Cornwall, there are large upright stone slabs 
which are bored through from one side to the other. They are sup- 
posed to have been connected with the Druidical worship. Healing 
power is also said to have been attributed to them, the diseased limb 
having been put through the hole, amid mysterious ceremonies, with a 
sonfident anticipation of cure. A similar superstition in France lends 
force to this hypothesis, and recently such a stone was removed because 
the peasants were so credulous that they thrust their ailing legs and arms 
through the hole and firmly believed that they would be healed. There 
is a similar stone near Duneau in the neighborhood of Conerets, in the 
department of Sarthe, and we have represented it in pl. 24, fig. 18, at the 
left. The stone is about 10 feet high, 6 feet broad, and 3 feet thick, and a 
bough of a neighboring tree has now pushed itself through the hole. 
6. Rocxtye Srones. The rocking stones must be classed among the 
most remarkable of the Celtic monuments. They are found in many 
places both in France and England. As their name implies, these monu- 
ments consist of huge stones which stand resting on a point in such a 
manner, either upon the ground or upon other stones, that the slightest 
touch puts them in motion. As this phenomenon may readily arise from 
natural causes, it would be wrong to suppose all such stones Druidical 
monuments. Thus the famous rocking stone near Huelgoet (Finisterre) 
is certainly nothing else than a rock fallen upon another and happening to 
balance there. Still in many instances it is impossible to deny the human 
agency. 
The question as to the object of these rocking stones is answered very 
variously, but unsatisfactorily. One writer thinks that they were arranged 
with such care and skill only to show how much was then known of the laws 
of equilibrium. Perhaps these stones, floating as it were in the air, were to 
represent the world in space, or were a symbol of the power which moves 
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