They are
what is called saccharine (that is, sugary) sandstone. If you chip
off a bit, you find it exactly like fine whity-brown sugar, only
intensely hard. Now these stones have become very famous; for two
reasons. First, the old Druids used them to build their temples.
Second, it is a most puzzling question where they came from.
First. They were used to build Druid temples.
If you go to the further lodge of Dogmersfield Park, which opens
close to the Barley-mow Inn, you will see there several of them,
about five feet high each, set up on end. They run in a line
through the plantation past the lodge, along the park palings; one
or two are in an adjoining field. They are the remains of a double
line; an avenue of stones, which has formed part of an ancient
British temple.
I know no more than that: of that I am certain.
But if you go to the Chalk Downs of Wiltshire, you see these temples
in their true grandeur. You have all heard of Stonehenge on
Salisbury Plain. Some of you may have heard of the great Druid
temple at Abury in Wilts, which, were it not all but destroyed,
would be even grander than Stonehenge. These are made of this same
sugar-sandstone.
But where did the sandstone come from? You may say, it "grew" of
itself in our sands and gravels; but it certainly did not "grow" on
the top of a bare chalk down.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128