L58 



Silbury. 



inspection of the interior in 1848. 1 It is now (as the learned 

 antiquary Governor Pownall tells us) but a ruin of what it originally 

 was, though it still covers two acres of ground, and has an elevation 

 of about 70 feet ; but its original height was not less than 100 feet, 

 as it has been used for ages as a stone quarry, for the making and 

 repairing of roads and the erection of buildings in the neighbour- 

 hood. It is formed of small stones, covered over with earth, and at 

 its base was encircled by a line of stones of enormous magnitude, 

 placed in erect positions, 2 and varying in height from four to eleven 

 feet above the ground, and supposed to weigh from ten to twelve 

 tons each : these stones as well as those of which the grand interior 

 chamber is built, are not found in the neighbourhood of the tumulus, 

 but have been brought hither from the mouth of the river Boyne, 

 a distance of seven or eight miles. The interior of the tumulus, 

 was accidentally made known in the year 1699, when a Mr. 

 Campbell, who resided in the neighbouring village, in carrying 

 away stones from it to repair a road, discovered the entrance to a 

 gallery or passage leading into a sepulchral chamber. This entrance 

 was about 50 feet from the original side of the Pyramid, and is 

 placed due South, and runs Northward : the length of this passage 

 to the entrance of the chamber is about 58 feet, its breadth and 

 height gradually narrowing till at about 18 feet from the entrance 



1 See Mr. Edward Lhwyd's description of it, in a letter to Mr. Rowlands at 

 the end of Mona Antiqua ; and that by Dr. Thomas Molineux, published first in 

 the Philosoph: Transactions No. 335 and 336, and afteiwards in his discourse on 

 Danish forts in Ireland : above all, see Governor Pownall's description in the 

 Archseologia, vol. ii. pp. 236 — 275. Also Journal of Archaeological Institute, 

 iii. 156. Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum, plate in vol. ii. p. 43. Dublin 

 Penny Saturday Journal, vol. i. p. 305. 



2 In the Salisbury vol. of the Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute in 

 1849, p. 74, Dean Merewether in speaking of Silbury, says, " It is remarkable, 

 though I have not seen it noticed by former writers, that the verge of the base 

 is set round with sarsen stones, three or four feet in diameter and at intervals 

 of about eighteen feet ; of these however, only eight are now visible, although 

 others may be covered with the detritus of the sloping sides of the tumulus, 

 and overgrown with turf." This is clearly a mistake, though it is astonishing 

 how the Dean, usually so careful, fell into such an error, for there is, and there 

 has been for very many years, but one small stone visible on the Northern side 

 of the base. [See Mr. Long's "Abury Illustrated" in Wiltshire Magazine, 

 vol. iv. p. 339.] 



