By Dr. Pkene, F.S.A., F.R.G.S. 



239 



tables are of larger dimensions, more careful workmanship, and 

 apparently, unlike the others, wrought with metal tools, although 

 the conical structures near them are not so important, all the ap- 

 pearances are those of later and more careful construction, and it is 

 near these that the largest quantity of Roman remains have been 

 found. With the politic and conciliatory custom of the Romans 

 in adopting the worship of the respective localities they governed, 

 these later stone tables appear to be identical as restorations of 

 previously existing and possibly of then decaying monuments ; 

 in short, on a more magnificent scale, of altars, or deities, or 

 both, as the case may be. In such case they assume the precise 

 condition of the more vast portion of Stonehenge. The smaller 

 circle, and the two small trilithons, clearly show the nature 

 of the earlier structure, and the Roman occupation of the locality 

 shows the interest the Romans felt in it. The principle of wrought 

 stone monuments is not British, still less so the mortise and tenon, 

 though the latter was clearly known to the constructors of the 

 ancient monuments in the Mediterranean islands just described, and 

 it is highly probable that rude stone structures, long since removed 

 in Spain, Africa, or Gaul, may have suggested this method to the 

 Romans, and it is possible that an ancient race, coming to Britain 

 in remote times, may have left rude examples of such constructions 

 in some of the smaller trilithons, long since perished. My im- 

 pression is, that as the Romans consolidated their power by alliance 

 with, and granting freedom to, the nobles of the countries they 

 governed ; as they considered the worship of the local deities 

 of other lands meritorious, and no abrogation of, nor detraction 

 from the honours claimed for their own deities of Rome, they 

 could show this in no more comprehensive way than by restoration 

 or augmentation of that temple in Britain, which was in the 

 centre of the deceased nobility of the land, and in the vicinity 

 of what was clearly the great wardmote or gathering place of the 

 British at Avebury. On the other hand, there is evidence enough 

 to show both in the mortise and tenon construction, and in the 

 vastness of the stones (although those of Stonehenge are smaller 

 than the great monoliths in Brittany), that the artificers, or at least 



