ING THE FOREIGN STONES

The five Sarsen Trilithons already mentioned were raised into position
from the inside of the circle. Investigation has shown this to be a
fact. It therefore stands to reason that the Foreign Stones were
erected last, and not first as has so often been supposed.

This is a hard saying, for it at once negatives the picturesque legend
that the Foreign Stones were a stone circle brought from Ireland, and
erected by a colonial tribe, who afterwards gave dignity to their
primitive temple by the erection of stately Trilithons. Furthermore,
the _debris_ of the ancient mason reveals chippings of Sarsen and
Foreign Stone intermingled so thoroughly as to preclude any idea of
two separate periods of building. Stonehenge, therefore, was erected
at one date and continuously. It is a question, as yet, if the outer
Sarsen Trilithons were erected from the outside or the inside of the
circle.

It has not been possible, in the foregoing brief description, to
enter into minute detail, but it is hoped that sufficient has been
said to show the stages by which the work of building was approached.

First, the rough trimming of the Sarsen, as it lay upon the Down, then
its transport to the spot, its final dressing, and the preparation of
its foundation, followed by those anxious days during which the
builders toiled as they raised it aloft; the feverish haste with which
they rammed and packed the loose rubble about its foot, casting in
their mauls and implements to wedge and fix it securely on its base:
and last of all, the final effort of raising the impost on its wooden
bed, rising now on this side, now on that, as the packings were
inserted beneath the levered stone. What a contrast to the Stonehenge
of to-day--abandoned and silent on the fast vanishing Plain of
Salisbury. Yesterday, it was the workplace of a teeming hive of
masons, the air filled with the tap of the smaller hammers dressing
the stone faces, with the sullen thud of the big maul pounding the
face of a newly arrived Sarsen, while the faint muffled "peck" of the
deer's horn told of trench workers dressing down a chalk face to
receive the thrust of the monolith, while high above the steady tap of
the picks and hammers came the sounds of an unknown tongue raised now
in command, now in argument, or encouragement as the work went on.

WHEN WAS STONEHENGE ERECTED?

Until comparatively recent years, the date of Stonehenge was a subject
for spec