The Druids must have brought the
stones thither, then, from neighbouring gravel-pits. They brought
them, no doubt: but not from gravel-pits. The stones are found
loose on the downs on the top of the bare chalk, in places where
they plainly have not been put by man.
For instance, near Marlborough is a long valley in the chalk, which,
for perhaps half a mile, is full of huge blocks of this sandstone,
lying about on the turf. The "gray wethers" the shepherds call
them. One look at them would show you that no man's hand had put
them there. They look like a river of stone, if I may so speak; as
if some mighty flood had rolled them along down the valley, and
there left them behind as it sunk.
Now, whence did they come?
Many answers have been given to that question. It was supposed by
many learned men that they had been brought from the sandstone
mountains of Wales, like the rolled pebbles of which I spoke just
now. But the answer to that was, that these great stones are not
rolled: they are all squarish, more or less; their edges are often
sharp and fresh, instead of being polished almost into balls, as
they would have been in rolling two hundred miles along a sea-
bottom, before such a tremendous current as would have been needed
to carry them.
Then rose a very clever guess. They must have been carried by
icebergs, as much silt and stones (we know) has been carried, and
have dropped, like them, to the bottom, when the icebergs melted.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129