A Review of " Pre-historic England" 



245 



clear vision and unprejudiced mind. If archaeology is to be shifted 

 from a basis of facts into a region of " ideas," it will inevitably 

 come to be lightly regarded ; and no paper has appeared of late 

 in any of our periodicals, in which accuracy of statement has been 

 so little esteemed, or wildness of theory so carelessly indulged in, 

 as in that now under our notice. 



"We have been accustomed hitherto to regard Abury and Stone- 

 henge as open-air structures, devoted primarily to religious purposes, 

 and possibly, in the second place, to assemblies for political or 

 judicial proceedings. Our reviewer now informs us that we have 

 been entirely in error ; that these stone circles were not hypsethral, 

 but that they were covered with roofs, and that those roofs were 

 conical ! But this is not all, " At Stonehenge, at Avebury, and in 

 the ruins of circular structures in general, we have traced indications 

 of the mason and of the joiner" " Nor is it reasonable to doubt 

 that the apertures between the stones were closed (at Stonehenge) 

 by Umber, and that the more perishable portions of these costly 

 structures were completed with a care and skill appropriate to the 

 perfection of the masonry." And why was Stonehenge to be roofed 

 in, and boarded up at the sides between the upright stones ? Because 

 f no public solemnity could have been held in any unroofed building 

 in northern climates, without the risk of ill-omened interruption ! " 

 The variations experienced, year by year, in the climatic condition 

 of almost every part of Europe, should have prevented our reviewer 

 from propounding such an unqualified statement as this. He has 

 however his architectural reasons ; " The minute and accurate care 

 of which the results are yet visible in the relics of Stonehenge, 

 denotes, that we are in presence of a structural edifice, properly so 

 called, and the opinion that it was protected by a roof, and that a 

 conical roof, is a consequence of this view." But what does the 

 writer mean by the "minute and accurate care of which the 

 results are yet visible in the relics of Stonehenge ? " Any one 

 who propounds such a theory as he has put forth is bound to be 

 explicit, and to show, in detail, the grounds upon which he has 

 constructed it. Such vague and unmeaning words are very 

 uncomplimentary to the intellects of his readers. 



VOL. XII. — NO. XXXV. T 



