By William Gowland, F.S.A., F.LC. 



59 



" Milestones " now remaining at Stonehenge probably represent 

 only the hardest and most durable of the materials employed, 

 many stones of soft and fissile character having disappeared entirely, 

 owing to the action of the weather and the assaults of relic-mongers, 

 during the long period of the existence of the monument. 



The older authors like Conybeare have insisted that the nature 

 of the stones is not inconsistent with the tradition that the circle 

 was transported by a tribe from Ireland from the neighbourhood 

 of Kildare ? 



Professor J ohn Phillips suggested Wales, Cornwall, and Dartmoor 

 as possible localities from which the " Milestones " of Stonehenge 

 may have been brought. 



The late Sir Andrew Kamsay wrote as follows : — the "Milestones " 

 clo not resemble the igneous rocks of Charnwood Forest, and without 

 asserting that they came from Wales or Shropshire, I may state 

 that they are of the same nature as the igneous rocks of part of 

 Lower Silurian region of North Pembrokeshire, of Caernarvonshire, 

 and of the Llancleilo flag district of Montgomeryshire, etc., west of 

 the Stiper Stones." 1 Professor Maskelyne was inclined to regard 

 North Wales or Cumberland as the districts from which the stones 

 might have been derived. 2 Mr. Teall points out that diabases of 

 the Stonehenge type are widely distributed in the South-West of 

 England, and that all the rocks of which he had seen fragments 

 from the soil " belong to types which are undoubtedly represented 

 in the West of England." 3 



But all attempts to suggest a locality in which all the " blue- 

 stones " might have been found by a primitive tribe and transported 

 by them to Salisbury Plain are confronted with one grave difficulty. 

 Is it conceivable that these skilful builders would have transported 

 such blocks of stone in their rough state, over mountains, hills and 

 rivers (and possibly over seas), in order to shape them at the point 

 of erection, when the rough-hewing of the blocks at the place where 



1 Memoirs of the Geological Survey of England and Wales. Geology of 

 part of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire (sheet 34) 1858, 43. 



' 2 Wilts Arch. Mag., xvii. (1877), 157. 

 3 Wilts Arch. Mag., xxvii. (1894), 67. 



