Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/305

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Stukely calculated the total number of stones em- ployed to form this stupendous work of Druidism, with its avenues and Overton temple, at six hundred and fifty. He supposed it altogether, when entire, represented the Deity by a serpent and a circle, the former represented by the two avenues, Overton temple being its head; the latter by the great work within the vallum at Abury."

Within these last thirty years, many of the stones which remained in Stukely's time, have been car- ried away, so that without the due above descri- bed, all would be confusion and irregularity to the enquirer. But what remain sufficiently point out the nature of the stones, the place from whence they have been removed, and the fact of very little art having been used in their exterior, preparatory to their being placed in the situati- ons which they respectively occupy. They are known in the country by the name of holler -
 * Aones or sarsons, (a word said to signify a rock

in the Phoenician langr*ac;e) consisting of sili- ceous grit, and are found in "several bottoms in the neighbourhood of Abury. Indeed they acconi- pany the great: southern stratum of chalk which crosses the kingdom from east-north-east to west- south-west through its whole course; lying im- bedded in the red earth which crown 4 : its surface.

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