There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in
Somerset, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and
Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech from the
Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such
an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.
Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one
of the latest of the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron
Age, about two hundred years before the Christian era. Antiquarians
have been very anxious about its safety. In 1900 one of the great
upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and
several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund
Antrobus, to furnish recommendations as to the best means of
preserving this unique memorial of an early race. We are glad to know
that all that can be done will be done to keep Stonehenge safe for
future generations.
We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the
remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation,
nor of what the French folk call _alignements_, or lines of stones,
which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli
are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the
prehistoric dead.
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