Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/132

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128
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
Fig. 3. Panorama of the Alignment of Ménec, near Carnac, from the westerly end. The cromlech Is Just behind the position of the camera, but could not be included in the view on account of a house and farm buildings. The alignment of

western ends with a cromlech, and LeRouzic is confident that there was originally a cromlech at the western end of Kermario, but that it has disappeared.

The alignment of Ménec may be taken as typical. It lies in an undulating pasture, with farm buildings here and there, and is crossed at about the middle by a country road. Through this field, from the slight elevation at the west, down through the hollow of the road, and disappearing over the rise at the east, stretch eleven rows of menhirs, the rows being approximately parallel and about thirty feet apart, and the whole a little over three hundred feet wide while in length they extend 3,800 feet, or over two thirds of a mile. Some of the menhirs have tumbled down; here and there we note one built into the walls separating the fields but still occupying its original position. In all there are 1,099 stones still standing in Ménec. At the eastern end they are small, rising but two or three feet above the soil, but at the western end are the giants, three or four feet in diameter and thirteen feet high.

The cromlech of Ménec consists of 70 stones, about five feet high on the average, which sweep in a semicircle around the farm buildings at the west end of the alignment, the chord of the curve including only the southern half of the lines proper.

Only dry facts need be given concerning the other alignments we saw. In Kermario there are 982 menhirs in ten rows, extending over