Ancient Stone-Work on Langley Burr ell Common. 69 



the west. But on the east the ellipse was broken, and the broad 

 course of vertical layers curved to a point, and then passed off into 

 a line of single stones for about 200 yards. It was thought that a 

 parallel line of single stones would be found on the south side, but 

 none remain in situ, and they were probably broken up in making 

 the road, which ran right through the work. The whole of the 

 internal area is pitched with small stones. The general direction 

 of the pitching is shown by arrows on the plate. The western are 

 of the circle (left blank on the plan) was buried under the drive, 

 but the road has now been diverted, and the courses of stones are 

 found to remain in position uninjured. The pitching has been 

 broken up along the line of the road ; where it remains, towards the 

 east, it is divided into three parallel oblong floors, slightly raised in 

 the middle, and separated from each other by narrow depressions 

 as shewn on the plan. The large stones are very hard, and of the 

 roughest character, and show no sign of any tooling whatever; 

 they probably came from an old quarry in Kington St. Michael, or 

 Leigh Delamere, and are of the Forest Marble formation, full of 

 fossils. The ground around has been probed and tested in every 

 direction, but no other stones have been detected. 



No tradition respecting this work exists in the parish or neigh- 

 bourhood, nor do any of the old people ever remember seeing any 

 other stones than those at a and b. Yet a century ago all the upper 

 ranges of the stones must have been above the level of the common. 



o 



The section at A A shows that, when disinterred, the upper stones 

 were covered with only 6in. of earth, while the highest stone was 

 not hidden at all. 



Darwin calculates that in England the worms raise the surface of 

 the ground one inch in ten years, more or less, according to the soil. 

 On an acre of land suitable for worm-work ten tons of earth pass 

 through their bodies, and are brought to the surface in one year. 

 There are twenty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-three 

 worms in an acre on Langley Common, and they work about two 

 hundred days in a year. A field of scant herbage which, in 1841, 

 was thickly covered with flints of the size of a man's fist, in 1871, 

 was all compact turf with mould 2iin. thick— all the work of worms. 



