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Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 



of October, and the beginning of March. The reason why the building stands 

 where it does he finds explained by certain measurements taken from the 

 neighbouring barrow, "No. 23." This he concludes is the burying-place of 

 some family connected with the erection of the temple, and from it both the 

 temple and the " cursus " were laid out. The barrows he concludes were I 

 already on the ground before the stones were erected. In consequence of their 

 presence the large number of strangers who assembled at the great festivals, 

 and who could not have been accommodated in the neighbouring British 

 villages, were prevented from camping out on the down, so a " Fair Field," or r 

 camping ground, was specially prepared for their accommodation and enclosed 

 within earthen banks. This is now known as "the Cursus." Stukeley | 

 mentions that even in his time the eastern bank was much defaced and trampled ( 

 down — doubtless, says Mr. Barclay — by the horses of the strangers encamped 

 in the cursus, who would go out on that side to the river to water. Again, | 

 adopting Stukeley's idea that the "avenues" were the roads by which 

 processions approached the temple, he argues that the functionaries who j 

 officiated at these festivals could not have lived in such a desolate spot, and 

 suggests that Vespasian's Camp may have been the ancient high place and 

 holy place of the Britons of those parts, where they resided, and from which 

 they set out in procession by the " long avenue," to be joined as soon as they ,1 

 came in sight by the strangers encamped in the " cursus " adjoining, aloDg I 

 their own " cursus avenue." One of the principal points upon which he insists j 

 is that the short pier of the outer circle — No. 11 — was intentionally different (j 

 from the other piers, and that it never had, or was intended to have, any lintel , 

 upon it — in fact that it marks a break in the lintel circle, and was probably the | 

 entrance to the temple. This, he points out, cuts away the ground upon which I 

 the astronomical theories of Higgins and others are based, for their arguments «|j 

 are founded on the assumption that the outer circle consisted originally of sixty j 

 stones, whereas if No. 11 had no lintel there would have been only fifty-eight 1 

 stones. Indeed, throughout the book he has a very keen eye for the weak f| 

 points in the theories of previous writers— particularly in those which, like his ? 

 own, are based on elaborate mathematical calculations — but the weak points in \\\ 

 his own argument do not appear to strike him so forcibly. j 

 He devotes a considerable amount of space to the description of the attributes i 

 of the chief Celtic gods mentioned by Julius Csesar as identical with analogous 

 Eoman deities, and then sets to work to connect each of them with an appro- 

 priate season of the year— Spring, May Day, Midsummer, Harvest, and 

 November. Having done this, he collects a number of references to May Day 

 customs, Midsummer fires, &c, and concludes that this mass of ingeniously 

 assorted evidence proves that the five trilithons were specially consecrated to the 

 five gods whose festivals he maintains were held at these five special seasons, 

 in the temple at Stonehenge. 



The author has evidently devoted an immense amount of time and labour 

 to the personal investigation and measurement of Stonehenge itself, and to 

 the literature of the subject, of which he gives a useful summary in chrono- 

 logical order ; but on one point at least he has not possessed himself of th e 

 latest information on the subject. He affirms that the " foreign stones " can 

 have come from no part of Great Britain, and thinks Brittany the most likely 



