from Salisbury. It is inclosed by a double circular bank and ditch, nearly thirty feet broad, after crossing which an ascent of thirty yards leads to the work. The whole fabric

was originally composed of two circles and two ovals.— The outer circle is about 108 feet in diameter, consisting, when entire, of sixty stones, thirty uprights, and thirty imposts, of which there now remain twenty-four uprights only, seventeen standing, and seven down, three feet and a half asunder, and eight imposts. Eleven uprights have their five imposts on them at the grand entrance: these stones are from thirteen to twenty feet high. The smaller circle is somewhat more than eight feet from the inside of the outer one, and consisted of forty smaller stones, the highest measuring about six feet, nineteen only of which now remain, and only eleven standing. The walk between these two circles is 300 feet in circumference. The adytum, or cell is an oval formed of ten stones, from sixteen to twenty-two feet high, in pairs, and with imposts above thirty feet high, rising in height as they go round, and each pair separate, and not connected as the outer pair: the highest eight feet.— Within these are nineteen other smaller single stones, of which six only are standing. At the upper end of the adytum is the altar, a large slab of blue coarse marble, 20 inches thick, sixteen feet long, and four broad: it is pressed down by the weight of the vast stones which have fallen upon it. The whole number of stones, uprights and imposts, comprehending the altar, is 140. The stones, which have been by some considered artificial, were most probably brought from those called the grey weathers on Marlborough Downs, distant fifteen or sixteen miles; and if tried with a tool, appear of the same hardness, grain and colour, generally reddish. The heads of oxen, deer and other beasts, have been found in digging in and about Stonehenge : and in the circumjacent barrows human bones. From the plain to this structure there are three entrances, the most considerable of which is from the north-east; and at each of them were raised, on the outside of the trench, two huge stones, with two smaller parallel ones within.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his history of the Britons, written in the reign of King Stephen, represents this monument as having been erected at the command of Aurelius Ambrosius, the last British king, in memory of 460 Britons

who were murdered by Hengist the Saxou. Polydore Virgil says that it was erected by the Britons as the sepulchral monument of Aurelius Ambrosius; and other writers consider it to have been that of the famous British queen Boadicea. Inigo Jones is of opinion that it was a Roman temple; and this conclusion he draws from a stone sixteen feet in length, and four in breadth, placed in an exact position to the eastward, altar-fashion. By Charlton it is ascribed to the Danes, who were two years master of Wiltshire; a tin tablet, on which were some unknown characters, having been dug up in the vicinity, in the reign of Henry VIII. This tablet, which is lost, might have given some information respecting its founders. Its common name, STONEHENGE, is Saxon, and signifies a "stone gallows," to which the stones, having tranverse imposts, bear some resemblance. It is also called in Welch choir gour, or the gi ants' dance.

Mr. Grose, the antiquary, is of opinion that Doctor Stukely has completely proved this structure to have been a British temple, in which the Druids officiated. He supposes it to have been the metropolitan temple of Great Britain, and translates the words choir gour, "the great choir or temple." It was customary with the Druids to place one large stone on another for a religious memorial;. and these they often placed so equably, that even a breath of wind would sometimes make them vibrate. Of such stones one remains at this day in the pile of Stonehenge.The ancients distinguished stones erected with a religious view, by the name of ambrosiae petrae, amber stones, the word amber implying whatever is solar and divine. According to Bryant, Stonehenge is composed of these amber stones; and hence the next town is denominated Ambresbury.

ROCKING STONES.

THE ROCKING STONE, or LOGAN, is a stone of a prodigious size, so nicely poised, that it rocks or shakes with the smallest force. Several of the consecrated stones mentioned above, were rocking stones; and there was a wonderful monument of this kind near Penzance in Cornwall, which still retains the name of main-amber, or the sacred stones. With these stones the ancients were not unacquainted.

Pliny relates that at Harpasa, a town of Asia, there was a rock of such a wonderful nature, that, if touched with the finger, it would shake, but could not be moved from its place with the whole force of the body. Ptolemy Hephistion mentions a stone of this description near the Ocean, which was agitated when struck by the stalk of the plant asphodel, or day lily, but could not be removed by a great exertion of force. Another is cited by Apollonius Rhodius, supposed to have been raised in the time of the Argonauts, in the island Tenos, as the monument of the two-winged sons of Boreas, slain by Hercules; and there are others in China, and in other countries.

Many rocking stones are to be found in different parts of Great Britain; some natural, and others artificial, or placed in their position by human art. That the latter are monuments erected by the Druids cannot be doubted; but tradition has not handed down the precise purpose for which they were intended. In the parish of St. Leven, Cornwall, there is a promontory called Castle Treryn. On the western side of the middle group, near the top, lies a very large stone, so evenly poised, that a hand may move it from one side to the other; yet so fixed on its base, that not any lever, or other mechanical force, can remove it from its present situation. It is called the LOGAN-STONE, and is at such a height from the ground as to render it incredible that it was raised to its present position by art. There are, however, other rocking stones, so shaped and situated, that there cannot be any doubt of their having been erected by human strength. Of this kind the great QUOIT, or KARN-LE HAU, in the parish of Tywidnek, in Wales, is considered. It is 39 feet in circumference, and four feet thick at a medium, and stands on a single pedestal. In the Island of St. Agnes, Scilly, is a remarkable stone of the same kind. The under rock is 10 feet high, 47 feet round the middle, and touches the ground with not more than half its base. The upper rock rests on one point only, and is so nicely balanced, that two or three men with a pole can move it. It is 84 feet high, and 47 in circumference. On the top is a bason hollowed out, 3 feet 11 inches in diameter at a medium, but wider at the brim, and 3 feet in depth. From the globular shape of the upper stone, it is highly probable that it was rounded by human art, and perhaps even placed on its pedestal by human