56 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



Most of these rock-fragments are perfectly angular, and would 

 appear to have been struck off' from the monoliths during shaping 

 and dressing, or from the stone tools used in the work. 



Only the hardest and most durable of the rocks among the 

 fragments (diabase and rhyolite, etc) are found to be represented 

 among the existing stones in the " bluestone " circles of Stonehenge. 

 The basic tuffs, the greywackes, the flagstones, and the slates, are 

 all rocks which, as we have seen, are softer, more easily broken, 

 and at the same time more susceptible to the action resulting from 

 atmospheric changes than the diabases and rhyolites (hornstones). 

 As we have already pointed out, rocks of a fissile character when 

 set on end would be quite unable through a long series of years to 

 withstand the constant alternation of rains and frost. 



The two " bluestone " circles of Stonehenge probably contained 

 originally thirty and fifteen upright stones respectively, of which 

 only nineteen of the former and eleven of the latter remain, 

 possibly imposts existed originally for each pair of bluestones, like 

 the stone 150, the only one of the kind which can now be identified. 

 It has sometimes been assumed that Stonehenge was a monument 

 that was never completed. I would suggest, on the contrary, that 

 it was a completed monument of which only the most durable 

 materials have survived the action of weather and the ravages of 

 time. 



It is a very significant circumstance that Mr. Cunnington found 

 the base of a " schistose " upright in the outer " bluestone " circle 

 between the stones 32 and 33 of the plan, and the gaps in both 

 the bluestone circles are strikingly suggestive of a considerable 

 number of stones having disappeared. 



EOCKS USED AS TOOLS BY THE BuiLDEES OF STONEHENGE. 



The materials employed as mauls and axes, of which such an 

 interesting collection was made by Mr. Gowland, are also worthy 

 of some attention. From small chips broken from the eight mauls, 

 with which Mr. Gowland has supplied me, I have had sections cut. 

 They all prove to be masses of " sarsen " of exceptional hardness 

 and induration, approaching quartzite in texture. They have 



