Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/135

Rh At Locmariaquer is also the largest of the dolmens, the "dolmen des marchands." I regret that I took no measurements of its size, especially since none are given in the works at hand. I can only depend upon my memory, aided by pictures, for my estimates. At its southern end is a passage about four feet wide and high enough for a tall man to stand erect. This is walled by vertical slabs of stone and roofed in with the same material. The passage leads to a larger chamber which is at least seven feet wide and high by possibly ten or twelve in length. The end opposite the entrance is formed of a single stone, shaped like

the smaller end of an egg and remarkable from the fact that its surface is covered with groups of parallel curved lines, a feature found but rarely in this region. Smaller stones, about six feet high, make up the sides of the chamber, while at the opening of the passage into the chamber are a pair of seven-foot stones, like door posts. The roof is supported on these three larger stones, like an enormous three-legged table. The table top is an immense block of granite, about ten feet wide, fifteen feet long and four feet in thickness. The problem of putting this roof in position is not so difficult as that of the erection of the giant menhir just described. We may imagine the ancient workers filling all around the vertical stones of the dolmen with soil and then sliding or rolling the covering stone into position. But even this calls for an expenditure of an enormous amount of human strength. Near this "table of the merchants" is another dolmen, "mané rétual" less perfect and less easily studied than its fellow, since it has