Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/168

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142
ENGLAND.
Chap. IV.

fragments mingling with the burnt bones it contained; but though restored, unfortunately no representation has been given. The only other articles found in this tumulus were "a battered celt of basaltic stone, a dart or javelin-point of flint, and a small iron fibula, which had been enriched with precious stones."[1]

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33.
Summit of Minning Low, as it appeared in 1786. From Douglas.

Though Gib Hill is interesting as the first of the high-level dolmens which we have met with in this country, Minning Low is a still more striking example of that class which we hinted at before as common in Aveyron (ante, woodcut No. 8), and which we shall meet with frequently as we proceed. When it first attracted the attention of antiquaries in 1786, Minning Low seems to have been a straight-lined truncated cone, about 300 feet in diameter, and the platform on its summit measured 80 feet across.[2] Its height could not be ascertained.[3] It was even then planted over with trees, so that these dimensions, except the breadth of the platform, are hardly to be depended upon, and since then the whole mound has been so dug into and ruined, that they cannot now be verified. On the platform


  1. Ante, p. 11.
  2. Douglas, 'Nenia Brittanica,' p. 168, pl. xxxv.
  3. If we knew its height we might guess its age. If it was 65 feet high, its angle must be 30 degrees, and its age probably the same as that of Silbury Hill. If 100 feet, and its angle above 40 degrees, it must have been older.