Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/693

Rh time devotees regarded grottoes of this sort as the burial places of holy bodies, and scratched up the ground in them for the cure of their diseases.

A megalithic monument in France of similar character is represented by the church of Sept Saints (of Seven Saints), in the hamlet of that name, which was built between 1702 and 1744, probably on the site of an older chapel. There is nothing remarkable in the church itself, which is in the form of a Latin cross, oriented in the orthodox direction, with a simple rustic steeple of some beauty. The arms of the cross constitute two chapels, in one of which is the sacristy, while the other one covers the crypt, which gives the church all its interest. On going down into this crypt one may realize without difficulty that he is in a real dolmen which has been converted into a place of worship. Two large granite tables resting on vertical slabs appertain to the primitive monument. A fourth support, now masked, apparently closes the end of the chamber. The chamber is rectangular, and its walls are filled in with stonework. It is divided by an openwork wooden partition provided with a door into two unequal parts, of which the front one is a sort of vestibule, and the other, with a floor sunk about a foot, is the chapel proper. It is dimly lighted, and at the end is a stone altar planked in front, over which is a niche containing seven small statues in a line, made in the most rudimentary style, and painted in colors tarnished with age. These represent the seven saints whose remains tradition says were found in the dolmen, and in honor of whom the church is named. These personages are likewise represented in the church by more imposing and more freshly colored wooden statues, but pilgrims prefer to pay their devotions to the old, faded, miraculously discovered statuettes below. The dolmen has probably, as Luzel affirms, been a cherished holy place from antiquity, and Christianity has simply given a sort of consecration to the pagan tradition. It is the subject of numerous legends, the most famous of which is the Breton story of the Gwerz des Sept Saints, which makes it of divine origin, and is in other respects almost the exact counterpart of the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie.

English Physical Society visited Eton in February, and were welcomed by Prof. T. C. Porter, who spoke of the value of the classics, on which Eton College prides itself, in education; and expressed the belief that others as well as himself desired that this reverent tradition of the classics should be preserved at the school; "at the same time they would agree with him that there was no better supplement to classics than a fair knowledge of the natural sciences."