Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/571

 ii s. v. JUNE is, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

471

RELICS OF LONDON'S PAST : THE CHINESE BKIDGE AND PAGODA (11 S. v. 270, 391). A pamphlet 8vo, pp. 18, 'Account of the National Jubilee in August, 1814, including a Description of the Edifices ; the Prepara- tions and Exhibitions in the Park ' before me gives a lengthy description of the Chinese bridge and pagoda. They were built for this celebration, and

" about ten were completely illuminated, and had the appearance of a blazing edifice of fire. Every part of the building was covered with lamps, the gas lights in proper places relieving the dazzling splendour with their silver lustre."

Its illumination was, unfortunately, too thorough :

" About twelve o'clock the Pagoda appeared to be in flames. It was soon ascertained that the rockets had communicated fire-to the buildings ; and though several engines were in readiness to meet such an event, nearly the whole of the structure, except the bridge, was destroyed perhaps a prophetic representation of the ap- proaching removal of pagan idolatry from the world."

The bridge was removed about 1820.

" This bridge, however, not being built of very durable materials, is very considerably decayed ; and to remedy this evil, as well as to preserve to the public so commodious a road, it is about to be replaced by a cast-iron bridge now preparing at Woolwich." Leigh's ' New Picture of London,' 1820, p. 221.

MR. UNTHANK is mistaken in supposing the pagoda was in any way associated with Kew Gardens. It may have been planned from Sir William Chambers's ' Designs of Chinese Buildings ' (1757), but more prob- ably it was derived from Halfpenny's Garden Phantasies. There was no resem- blance between these two pagodas, and the trumpery erection burnt August, 1814, could not, except as ashes, go to Kew Gardens ; neither did it come from there. The well- built brick tower still an ornament at Kew was built 1763. Vide the late W. L. Button's ' The Royal Residence of Kew,' Ladies' Magazine (December, 1765), Gentle- man's Magazine (January, 1768).

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

NEOLITHIC REMAINS : THEIR GEOGRAPHI- CAL DISTRIBUTION (11 S. v. 349). Mr. T. Rice Holmes, ' Ancient Britain and the Inva- sions of Julius Caesar,' Oxford, 1907, pp. 66, 402, says that dolmens abound in Syria and Northern Africa, along the western side of the Spanish Peninsula, over nearly the whole of France, in Northern Germany, Wales and the West of England, Ireland, South- Western and Northern Scotland, Den- mark, and Scandinavia. Some archaeolo- gists conclude that a dolmen-building race

gradually moved westward from Syria, across the Straits of Gibraltar, and thence passed through Spain and Gaul to Britain ; while others insist that the place of departure was Scandinavia. It is not improbable, Mr. Holmes adds, that dolmens, which exist also in India, Japan, and many other countries, and which might have been built all over the world if stones had been every- where available for their construction, were not originally designed by any one people. Angelo Mosso, ' The Dawn of Mediterra- nean Civilization,' London, 1910, p. 220, writes that the dolmens mark the path of prehistoric commerce, which skirted the shores of Africa as far as the Atlantic, and, after passing along the coasts of Spain and France, ended at the British Isles. An- other commercial road marked by dolmens is that which passes through Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, crosses France and Brittany, and ends at the English Channel. (See pp. 220-50, 377, 401.)

Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, in his recently published work which contains much anti- quarian lore ' In Northern Mists,' London, 1911, p. 22, refers to the distribution of cromlechs (cromlech and dolmen mean the same thing) over Sicily, Corsica, Portugal and the North of Spain, Brittany, the British Isles, the^ North Sea coast of Ger- many, Denmark, and Southern Scandi- navia as far as Bohuslen, and perhaps further, and regards these as proof of com- munication by sea, along the coasts of Western Europe, between the Mediterranean and the North, as early as about 2000 B.C.

In the article ' Stone Monuments,' in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' llth ed., 1911, xxv. 965, we read :

" No dolmens exist in eastern Europe beyond Saxony. They reappear, however, in the Crimea and Circassia. whence they have been traced through Central Asia to India, where they are widely distributed. Similar structures have also been recognized by travellers in Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Australia, Madagascar, Peru, &c. The irregular manner in which these megalithic monu- ments are distributed along the western parts of Europe bordering on the seashore has led to the theory that they were erected by a special people, but as to the when, whence, and whither of this megalithic race we have no knowledge whatever. Although the European dolmens, however widely apart they may be situated, have a strong family likeness, yet they present some striking differ- ences in certain localities. In Scandinavia they are confined to Danish lands and a few provinces in the south of Sweden."

Dr. A. H. Keane, ' Ethnology,' London* 1896, p. 123, attributes them to Neolithic times. Dr. Robert Hartmann, ' Die Ni- gritier : eine Anthropologisch-Ethnologische