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from Vellore. The ground in this locality is covered with interesting 

 relics of a race whose occupancy of the country was evidently anterior 

 to the Hindoos. I have marked on the sketch a line of defence from 

 the base of the hill to the river, composed of large boulders. The foun- 

 dations of circular buildings exist in considerable numbers ; and at the 

 entrance to nearly all the dwellings a mass of granite stands, with a 

 cavity cut into its upper surface, evidently intended for a mortar to pound 

 grain in. 



Fig. 2. 



' ' The Cromlech I send a sketch of must have been an altar for sa- 

 crifice ; it stands on a mass of laminated gneiss that crops out on the 

 surface, so that it could not have been intended as a place of burial. I 

 have not sketched in the circle of stones surrounding the Cromlech ; 

 these are placed about a yard apart from each other, and form a circle of 

 thirty yards diameter. 



" While laying out a new line of road to connect the southern trunk 

 road with that from Yellore to Amer, I discovered four other Cromlechs, 

 placed so as to form a perfect square ; they are similar in construction 

 to the one sketched. 



" The nature of my duties in India a3 an engineer in the service of 

 Government took me much among the people, whose language and pecu- 

 liarities I am well acquainted with. When I could prevail on one of 

 the inhabitants near the site of these remains of a bygone race to get 

 rid of the characteristic apathy of his countrymen to matters not per- 

 sonally interesting, I could learn from him the tradition, ' that the stones 

 were put up by a people who lived in the country before Buddhism or 

 Erahminism was introduced, and that the Cromlechs were sacrificial 

 altars on which men were immolated.' 



" The villages of Dooshu and Mannidoor are a few miles south of the 

 Palaar River, in the North Arcot District ; between these villages an 

 immense tank, or reservoir, for storing water for rice irrigation stands. 

 The tank is formed by filling up the gorge between two low hills, and 



