The Opening Meeting. 



109 



horses driven amongst or tethered to the stones. In one instance a 

 horse was thus tied up, but got hampered, and fell, and finally 

 kicked two large pieces off one of the stones. The trilithon which 

 fell in 1797 was used as a slide by boys, and it was as smooth as if 

 it had been French polished. 



The President said the subject was one of paramount importance, 

 and one in which vigorous action on their part migkt really do 

 something. The mischiefs alluded to were evidently accumulating. 

 Every bit that came off Stonehenge was a bit more lost, and could 

 never be replaced. There were different kinds of stones in Stone- 

 henge,and some of them were not only very much softer in their nature 

 than the hard Sarsens, but were weathering and getting soft very 

 fast. At present we knew not exactly where they came from ; some 

 of them are exotic stones, and these were the very ones which were 

 pitched upon by the man who went there to carry away, perhaps to the 

 other side o£ America or to some remote English village, some little 

 relic as testimony to his having been to Stonehenge. These precious 

 stones ought to be preserved most carefully. Then came the question 

 of how it was to be done. The only way was, he thought, what had 

 been proposed by the deputation, viz., to, in some way or other, keep 

 the general public from meddling with the stones. This could only 

 be done by having somebody appointed, not merely as a general 

 curator, but somebody who should be practically resident there and 

 be supported by authority. How that authority was to be given 

 against the will of a landlord, of course one could not say. They 

 must only hope that by perpetually bringing this thing before the 

 public, they might arouse the interest and zeal of the landlord, so 

 that he and they might work together. The proposal to put a 

 ha-ha round was one involving considerable expense; he frankly 

 confessed that he did not see how that expense was to be provided, 

 and, further, that he did not believe it would prove an effectual 

 protection. He was in favour of a light iron fence, which at any 

 rate would be a symbol of the line within which the public was 

 not to be admitted without certain precautions. There should be 

 one entrance at which the public could be admitted, and they might, 

 if thought desirable, charge a very small fee for entrance. Within 



