SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Menhirs. — Dr. Thomas Inman has communicated to the Literary and 
Philosophical Society of Liverpool some notes on the mode in which 
gigantic stones, such as those of Stonehenge, and the menhirs of Brittany, 
may have been erected in the positions they now occupy. His observations 
are founded on the statements of the late Mr. Greey, a civil engineer, who 
saw a block of stone, weighing from 20 to 30 tons, carried up a hill to a height 
of 4,000 feet, in the course of three or four hours. This was apparently among 
the Khasia hills, where, according to Major Godwin- Austen, upright stones 
of large size are very common. The stone was fixed upon two long trees, 
placed parallel to each other at its two ends, and projecting for a consider- 
able distance on each side of the megalith. Between these trees, and 
parallel to the stone, several cross-ties were lashed, dividing the cradle on 
each side into parallelograms, in each of which a considerable number of 
men could stand, each having a firm hand-hold upon one of the cross-ties. 
By taking five of the cross-ties on each side of the stone Dr. Inman reckons 
that there would be room for 600 bearers, which, taking the block at 
26 tons, or 520 cwt., would give less than 1 cwt. for each man to carry. 
His informant did not count the men, but he saw them lift the frame with 
the block of stone and walk off with it easily to the top of a hill 4,000 feet 
high. Its erection when there was effected in an equally simple manner. A hole 
was dug where it was to stand, the lashings securing one end of the stone were 
cut, and the ties removed, so as to allow the end of the stone to fall into the 
hole ; ropes were attached to the other tree and hauled upon until the stone 
was brought into an erect position, when the hole was filled in and the work 
completed. The whole process does not occupy more than three or four hours, 
and the work is done gratuitously, all members of the community, according to 
Major Godwin- Austen, being under an obligation to assist in so meritorious 
a work, the menhirs being generally, if not always, erected in honour 
of some deceased member of a tribe or family through whose influence in 
the other world prosperity is supposed to have accrued to the family 
or clan. 
