By Mr. Cunning ton, F.O.S. 



147 



itself, as is shown by the fact that they were largely used for ram- 

 ming around the bases of the obelisks. 



Most of them have sharp fresh fractures, having been protected 

 by the covering of turf; and a certain proportion of them have on 

 one side a weathered surface, just such as might be expected if the 

 stones had been brought to the spot in their original unhewn condition. 

 The weathering of some of the diabase fragments, especially, is so 

 marked as to lead to the conclusion that they may even have been 

 exposed to the action of the sea-shore. It is more deeply marked 

 than on the surfaces of the stones now standing in the temple, 

 though the storms of so many centuries have passed over them. 



We may fairly conclude that these foreign stones, like the 

 Wiltshire sarsens associated with them in the building, were never 

 quarried, but derived from boulders left on the surface, or brought 

 from some rocky shore. 



Altae Stone. 



Many small pieces of the altar stone have been found in various 

 places, in and around the building; one occurred in the concreted 

 substance. These are doubtless the chippings which were struck off 

 when it was originally worked into shape. A passage in a letter 

 from Mr. Cunnington, of Heytesbury, to Mr. Britton is interesting 

 in connection with this subject (date, April 12th, 1803). He says : 

 " I have dug two or three times before the altar stone, once to the 

 depth of six feet. At about three feet deep I found some Roman and 

 other pottery; at the depth of six jeet some pieces of sarsen stone, and 

 three pieces of coarse half-burnt British pottery with charred wood. 

 . . . I pledge myself to prove that the altar stone was worked 

 with tools of some hind" Sir R. C. Hoare refers to the digging, 

 but omits all mention of the suggestive facts stated in the paragraph 

 just quoted. 



In another letter, dated 1802, he says: "The sides of the altar 

 stone still retain the marks of the tools with which it was originally 

 wrought.'" 



I would here suggest that had the " Altar " stone been subjected 

 to the heat of sacrificial fires, as some authors (and artists) would 



