Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/633

Rh Plain is the perfect and well-known monument of Stonehenge, with over three hundred tumuli within a radius of three miles. A few miles further north is the great temple of Avebury, which Sir John Lubbock calls the greatest of all so-called Druidical monuments, and which he says, quoting from Aubrey, 'did as much exceed Stonehenge as a cathedral does a parish church.' Here, originally, were 650 great standing stones, although at present not more than 20 have been left in place, while near by, belonging to the great monument of Avebury.

is Silbury Hill, 130 feet high and covering five and one half acres, the largest artificial mound in Europe.

The monuments of Europe have been divided into nine classes, if we follow the classification given in Brittany.

1. Menhirs, meaning, in Breton, 'long stones,' single untrimmed stones placed upright.

2. Alignments, groups of menhirs placed in one or several lines.

3. Lechs, menhirs which have been trimmed, having generally engraved crosses upon their sides, and which are so comparatively recent as to be hardly worthy of consideration as compared with the other prehistoric monuments.

4. Cromlechs, meaning 'circle places,' groups of menhirs arranged to form circles; although in England this term is erroneously used to denote a dolmen or other stone monument.