Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/362

336, trilithons of hewn or partially hewn stone, as this one at Sauclières (woodcut No. 122), which at least look more modern than their northern congeners.

The monument, however, that seems capable of throwing the greatest amount of light on their age is the dolmen of St.-Germain-sur-Vienne, near Confolens, in Poitou. As will be seen from the woodcuts opposite, its cap-stone, measures 12 feet by 15 feet, and is of proportionate thickness. The mass was originally supported by five columns of Gothic design, but one having fallen away, it now rests only on four; but their interest arises from the fact that the style of their ornamentation belongs undoubtedly to the twelfth century or thereabouts—certainly not earlier than the eleventh. In order to explain away so unwelcome an anomaly, it has been suggested, that some persons in the twelfth century cut away all the rest of the original rude stones which supported the cap-stone, and left only the frail shafts which we now see. If this were so, it would in no way alter the argument to be derived from it. If men could be found in the twelfth century to take the trouble and run the enormous risk of such an operation, their respect for the monument must have been quite equal to that implied in its erection; but the fact is that each of the five columns is composed of three separate pieces—a base, a shaft, and a capital, and we see them now as they were originally erected.

There may be doubts about the tomb of the Moals at Ballina (page 233), but doubt seems impossible with regard to this: it is a dolmen pure and simple, and it was erected in the twelfth century. In itself the fact may not be of any very great importance, but it cuts away the ground from any à priori argument as to the age of these monuments. It does not, of course, prove that they are all modern, but it does show that some of them at