130 



the remaining effects of that ancient law and custom of not striking a 

 tool upon the stones of their altars, but to build them up of the rudest 

 lumps and slivers of stones they could meet with, which law we may 

 well conclude to have prevailed likewise in these countries, and that 

 these mentioned monuments of ours are some of the remains of that 

 ancient institution and custom."^* 



I may observe that Mr. Eowlands, at page 214 of his first essay, 

 modifies the derivation of the term cromlech, which he gave at page 47, 

 as from the Hebrew words Ccermm-luath, a devoted stone or altar. In 

 the second essay, he observes — The name cromlech may seem to be 

 no other than a corrupt pronouncing of an original Hebrew name, 

 chemar-luach, a burning or sacrificing stone or table ; or, perhaps 

 more likely, as I before intimated from (the Hebrew words) chcerum- 

 lucli, or luach, i.e. a consecrated stone, or devoted stone or altar." But 

 the orthography even of the latter words is difi'erent from that of the 

 Hebrew words first referred to by the author. 



Brewer, in his "Beauties of Ireland" (8vo. 1825, vol. i., p. 87, 

 Introd.), derives the term cromlech ''from the words crom, bent, and 

 leac, a flag or stone." 



I am indebted to a better authority than either of the above-named 

 writers, the most eminent of living Irish scholars, Eugene Curry, for 

 the following observations on the derivation of the term cromlech : — 



The compound term, cromlech, is not an Irish formation, though 

 the component parts are Irish slightly corrupted in the second part. 

 The words are crom — stooped, sloped, or inclined ; and leac (not lech) 

 pronounced lack, a flag or rock with a flat level surface. 



'' There is no such compound word, nor with such a signification as 

 it now has, to be found in the proper Irish language. 



''I believe the term was first formed by Bishop Owen, of Wales, 

 about A. D. 1600, in translating the English Bible into Welsh, and was 

 applied by him to rocks or cliffs which shelved forward, so as to leave 

 clefts, or rather sheltered recesses, for foxes and other wild animals to 

 seek shelter in. I speak from memory in relation to the latter part of 

 the subject, but as an authority in relation to the first." 



This slight notice of an interesting subject, I venture to hope, may 

 call the attention of some eminent archaeologists to the numerous mo- 

 numents identical with our cromlechs existing in iJ^orthern Africa, 

 capable of examining them with all due scientific knowledge and fami- 

 liarity with investigations of this kind. 



And in conclusion I would venture to suggest, that in comparing 

 the monuments of a primeval antiquity — the supposed cromlechs of 

 other countries — with those existing in our own land, it should be borne 

 in mind that the genuine and unfailing characteristics of those last-men- 

 tioned monuments are the following : — The supporters and the covering 

 slab of them are invariably of unhewn stone ; the covering un wrought 



* Mona Antiqua, p. 214. 



