180 



Short Notes. 



an altar stone to the temple, but to the single obeliscal stone or JBethyle ; 

 at all events from the methodical position of it, it is worthy of being raised ; 

 for if it had been originally erect 1 there might be a possibility of its being 

 laid prostrate for some sepulchral purpose ; and therefore some funereal 

 relics might be found under it . . . ." 



Mr. James Douglas to Mr. Cunnington, March 16th, 1810 : — 

 " In page 131 of my Nenia I made a very incautious and unhandsome 

 remark on the father of our British antiquities, the learned and ingenious 

 Br. Stukeley ; for whose memory I entertain a great regard, notwithstanding 

 the fastidious criticism of many superficial modern antiquaries. It was on 

 a Barrow which my imprudent remark was hazarded, north of Stonehenge 

 in the group south of the cursus. What he calls a double barrow, one of 

 which contained the skeleton of a man, and the smaller one, the urn, burnt 

 bones, and a considerable number of beads and other articles of a young 

 female, which he engraved in PI. xxxii. of his Stonehenge, now before me. 

 The relics in question, which I had never seen but by the engraving, made 

 me incautiously apply them to the order of my lower barrows ; in which, 

 having found beads of glass and amber of the shape he described, inclined 

 me to suppose them of a coeval date ; but by the same kind of beads in your 

 possession of the " pully " fashion and the verditer opaque glass which I 

 saw, I have no doubt now, of their British period, of a high date, and which 

 the bronze spear head found in the same barrow ought to have convinced 

 me of. You thus perceive, my dear Sir, that error is the common fate of 

 short-sighted man." 



[The beads of "pully" fashion, mentioned above, are the long notched 

 glass beads of which we have several in the Museum.— Ed.] 



Stonehenge. Excavations at, 1801. The following passage occurs in a 

 letter from Mr. Cunnington to Mr. Leman, of Bath, dated Heytesbury, 

 1801 : — " I have this summer dug in several places in the area and neigh- 

 bourhood of Stonehenge and particularly at the foot of the ' altar,' where I 

 dug to the depth of five feet or more, and found charred wood, animal 

 bones and pottery, of the latter there were several pieces similar to the 

 rude urns found in the Barrows, also some pieces of Roman pottery. In 

 several places I found stag's horns." 



W. Cunnington. 



Stonehenge. It appears that the mystery which has so long surrounded 

 Stonehenge has been solved at last ! So at least says " Dr. Berks Hutchinson, 

 of Cape Town, S. Africa," who advertises in the Southampton Observer of 

 April 3rd, 1897, a Stonehenge Exhibition at 65, Waterloo Place, Southamp- 

 ton, admission one shilling, in which all "Archaeologists, Freemasons, 

 Master Mariners, Astronomers, &c, will find food for reflection." " Stone- 

 henge is a veritable relic of an ancient British Royal Arch (Israelitish) 



1 Mr. Cunnington's answer to this part of the letter is printed in Wilts Arch, 

 Mag., xxiv., 129. 



