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IX.Account of the Fall of some of the Stones of Stonehenge, in a Letter from William George Maton, M.B.F.A.S. to Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq. F.R.S. and F.A.S.
Read June 29, 1797.
Dear Sir,
HAVING lately had more leisure to make remarks on the alteration produced in the aspect of Stonehenge, by the fall of some of the stones in January last, than when I first visited the spot for this purpose, I am anxious to lay before the Antiquarian Society a more full and correct account of it than that which you did me the honour to transmit to them before.
On the third of the month already mentioned some people employed at the plough, full half a mile distant from Stonehenge, suddenly felt a considerable concussion, or jarring, of the ground, occasioned, as they afterwards perceived, by the fall of two of the largest stones and their impost. That the concussion would have been so sensible will not appear incredible when I state the weight of these stones; but it may be proper to mention, first, what part of the structure they composed, and what were their respective dimensions.
Of those five sets, or compages, of stones (each consisting of two uprights and an impost) which Dr. Stukely expressively termed trilithons, three had hitherto remained in their original position and entire, two being on the left hand side as you advance from the
