to the Deity to an inherent sanctity and sacredness which was intended to be reflected from these commemorative stones to the fictions or facts of which they had become the witnesses and the testimony; and therefore circles or heaps of stones were put up in favourable localities wherever it was judged advisable to perpetuate the remembrance of deeds worthy of such record. The Scriptures, which are inestimable, even if only as the special records of the earliest history, detail these compacts and their evidences, in their account of the covenant entered into between Jacob and Laban (Genesis xxxi. 44): "Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap." Now, the placing the stones in a circle does not appear clear from this description; yet the next instance cited almost necessarily involves the stones being placed, if not round a common centre, at least in a symmetrical order: "And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take ye twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man; and command ye them, saying, Take ye hence out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones; and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging-place where ye shall lodge this night: that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? then shall ye answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan. The waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall
