129 



statement of the covering stone of these monuments having only three 

 supports. 



In Brittany they are indefinite in number, extending from three to 

 seven, nine, or even more. Rowlands describes those of i\.ngiesey as in- 

 determinate in number, and, I may add, the same observation applies to 

 those of JN'orthern Africa. 



The Rev. Henry Rowlands, in his Mona Antiqua Restarata," 4to, 

 1723, p. 47, derives the name cromlech from the Hebrew Ccerceum-lech 

 or Ccerem-luach, a consecrated stone, which signifies an altar, and which 

 signification is adduced in support of a theory of Mr. Rowlands', namely, 

 that the first use and purpose of those monuments, erected in the East 

 by the early descendants of JSToah, and raised in every country they came 

 to as they proceeded in peopling the earth, were connected with the ser- 

 vice of true religion ; but afterwards that such altars whereon had been 

 ofiered the first-fruits of the earth to the true God were turned away to 

 Pagan uses, and made to serve for oblations and sacrifices to false gods. 

 Eut the author subsequently qualifies his opinion, and says : — " I deny 

 not but there may be some probability of truth in them (the traditions 

 existing of those monuments being sepulchres of renowned warriors or 

 persons of great eminence interred in those places), and yet consistent 

 enough with what I have said of them ; for they might be both sepulchres 

 and altars — I mean those of latter erection, — because, when the great 

 ones of the first ages fell, those who were eminent among the people for 

 some extraordinary qualities and virtues, their enamoured posterity con- 

 tinued their veneration to them to their very graves, over which they 

 erected some of those altars or cromlechs, on which, when their true 

 religion faltered, and became depraved and corrupted, they mJght make 

 oblations and off'er sacrifices to their departed ghosts. From this prac- 

 tice, it is likely, grew the apotheosis of the first heroes, and from thence 

 the gross idolatries of the Gentiles." 



The author, at page 214, proceeds to show that cromlechs are types 

 and reproductions of the most ancient monuments in the world; for in 

 the Sacred Scripture it is said that as soon as i^oah and his family came 

 out of the ark, they built an altar unto the Lord. And to build (the 

 Hebrew word equivalent to cedijicare in the original), imports the erec- 

 tion of raising stones, one upon another ; and this signification of the 

 word is somewhat exegetically amplified in another place, viz., Haggai, 

 ch. ii., V. 15, where such a construction is expressed by the Hebrew 

 words employed, literally rendered, " Stone laid on a stone." And, fur- 

 ther, the author argues, that altars of stones so erected of masses of rude 

 unhewn rock, such as those early altars must have been necessarily at 

 that period, were such as our cromlechs are at this day. Moreover, he 

 observes, It is presumptive also that they then had a strict precept 

 for such structures, if that precept, ' Thou shalt not build an altar of 

 hewn stones,' be (as a great part of the chapter is) a repetition of the 

 old original law which the patriarchs before them in ail probability 

 strictly observed, and other nations, probably after their example, as 

 strictly followed ; by which it will appear that our cromlechs are but 



