ARCHITECTURE. 115 
whilst in the British Islands they are more frequent. 7g. 19 represents 
one from the Orkney islands, somewhat over 300 feet in diameter, very well 
preserved, and also interesting on account of its picturesque situation. In 
the centre of the cromlechs was a men-hir as symbol of the Deity to which 
the inclosure was consecrated, and which was worshipped by the people. 
Sometimes dolmen are found near the sacred inclosures, but never within 
the same, as the sanctuary must not be desecrated by the blood of the 
victims. 
Cromlechs have also been found in Germany. One of them situated near 
Helmstadt, in Brunswick, is very remarkable. It has in the centre a men- 
hir standing between two triliths, which arrangement seems to corroborate 
the view that the triliths were merely dedicatory, not sacrificial altars, 
since, as we have seen, dolmen proper never occur within the circle of the 
inclosure. In Switzerland, where no other Druidical monuments are found, 
a cromlech occurs in the picturesque district of Hasli. 
In England there are two monuments of this kind, but more complicated 
in character. The more important one is Stonehenge, in Wiltshire. It 
consists of a double inclosure of upright stones about 28 feet high and 7 
feet broad. These stones are rudely hewn into quadrangular form, and 
surmounted by a kind of architrave of more carefully wrought stones 
mortised on their supports. The outer circle is about 190 feet in diameter. 
Within the double inclosure are two others of elliptical form, open on one 
side and containing each a men-hir standing alone in the centre. There 
can be no doubt that the group was a cromlech dedicated to some 
powerful deity, although some archeologists designate it as the ruin of 
some substructure. 
It will be proper to insert here, before passing to the period of the Middle 
Ages, some remarks on the architecture of China and America, neither of 
which can be grouped in any of the chronological periods of architecture, 
the former having had no ancient, and the latter having no modern architec- 
ture of its own, as will appear from our sketch of the monuments of these 
countries. 
9. CarnesE ARCHITECTURE. 
China is essentially the country of stagnation. Hundreds of inventions, 
made by other people in later centuries, have been known to the 
Chinese often for thousands of years; but at a certain point of develop- 
ment their progress has been arrested, and they have been gradually 
distanced by the development of the rest of the world so as now to 
be very far behind the general civilization. Their architecture of the 
present day is exactly what it has been time out of mind, and this 
suggested the foregoing remark that they had no ancient architecture, as it 
is identical with the modern in every characteristic. The great Chinese 
wall bears witness to the early progress of art in China, whilst at the 
same time, in a measure, it is the cause of its arrest, since it is a barrier 
against the introduction of foreign improvement as well as against the 
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