Recent Excavations at Stonehenge, 



35 



many of the rubbing stones that had been actually used in the 

 process. 



The lintels have also either vertical projections or grooves on 

 their ends forming rude toggle joints by which they were connected 

 with one another. These, too, could be fashioned with the hammer- 

 stones, and with rubbing stones and sand, without any difficulty. 

 It may be further remarked, that in all such considerations of 

 primitive art it must be remembered that time, which forms 

 such an important element in modern work, hardly comes into 

 account in that of early man. 



The finished surfaces of all the stones exhibit very careful 

 tooling, except where it has been destroyed by exposure. This 

 was particularly well seen on the base of No. 56, where it extends 

 below the ground, and had thus been protected from the action of 

 the weather, and on the lower side of No. 55<x. On the under side 

 of the fallen lintel, No. 122, it is also very distinct. 



A thin slab that became detached from stone No. 56 near its 

 lower extremity, whilst it was being raised, a part of which is 

 shown in Fig. 13, affords a characteristic example of this tooling in 

 a very perfect condition, in fact almost as cli|j|f§|3^8)2l it was 

 originally clone. 



This tooling was apparently executed with the small quartzite 

 hammers. In order to demonstrate this a piece of sarsen was 

 tooled in a similar manner by Mr. Stallybrass with a quartzite 

 pebble. On comparing it with the blocks tooled by the builders 

 of Stonehenge they were seen to be almost perfectly identical. I 

 may say in this connection that Mr. Stallybrass failed to produce 

 anything at all like it with any of his mason's tools. 



We next come to the " bluestones " and the altar stone, which, 

 as we have seen, consist of various kinds of rock, the two hardest 

 of which are diabase and porphyrite. On the stones of these latter 

 materials no grooves are apparent, except on No. 67, the groove on 

 No. 68 having been cut for some special purpose, which is not 

 clearly evident, and not with the mere object of shaping the stone. 

 The chippings from them are generally small, and from their forms, 

 •even when large, have all apparently been struck off by blows from 



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