village of Krukenho, halfway between Carnac and Erdeven, and is now used as a cart-shed or barn. It certainly never was covered up, though its entrance may have been closed; indeed, the stones used for that purpose still lie in front of it. From this, which may be styled a first-class dolmen of the ordinary type, down to the simple dolmen of four stones, like Kit's Cotty house, every possible variety and gradation are to be found in France; but, so far as I know, no classification has been hit upon which would enable us to say which are the oldest or which the more modern.
On the whole, however, I am inclined to look on the Grottes des fées as the more modern form. The stones of which they are composed are generally hewn, or at least shaped, by metal tools to the extent to which those of Stonehenge can be said to be so treated. They also look more like ordinary structures than other megalithic monuments, and seem rather sepulchral chapels than sepulchres. Even, however, if we were to determine to regard them as relatively the most modern of the northern dolmens, this would not settle the question of the southern external dolmens on tumuli, which may be even more modern. These questions, however, must, I fear, remain unanswered till our knowledge of the form of the whole group and of the materials of which the monuments are composed is more extensive and more accurate than it is at present.
The holed-stone variety occurs frequently in France, either in the form of simple four-stone dolmens, like that of Trie, Oise[1] (woodcut No. 127), or in a still more characteristic example at Grandmont, in Bas-Languedoc[2] (woodcut No. 128). Certainly neither of these was intended to be covered up, at least in the first instance, or, at all events, only partially; or the use of the hole, which was, no doubt, to get access to the chamber, would have been destroyed. The umbrella form of the southern example is hardly such as would ever be used for a chamber in a tumulus, but as a pent-roof is singularly suitable for an open-air monument. The so-called Coves at Avebury were, I believe, in this form, and it prevails also in India[3] and elsewhere, and the
