Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/148

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
140
Sir Norman Lockyer and Mr. F. C. Penrose. Attempt to

circular temple was also surrounded by an earthen bank, also circular, of about 300 feet in diameter, interrupted towards the north-east by receiving into itself the banks forming the avenue before mentioned, which is about 50 feet across. Within this avenue, and, looking north- east from the centre of the temple, at about 250 feet distance arid considerably to the right hand of the axis, stands an isolated stone, which from a mediaeval legend has been named the Friar's Heel.

FIG. 1. General plan of Stonehenge.

The axis passes very nearly centrally through an intercolumniation (so to call it) between two uprights of the external circle and between the uprights of the westernmost trilithon as it originally stood. Of this trilithon the southernmost upright with the lintel stone fell in the year 1620, but the companion survived as the leaning stone which formed a conspicuous and picturesque object for many years, but happily now restored to its original more dignified and safer condition of vertically. The inclination of this stone, how- ever, having taken place in the direction of the axis of the avenue,