will be found extenfively commented upon. What is moft worthy of remark here is, that in those TOLMEN, or vaft ftony receffes, was anciently performed the very fame fpecies of fuperftition alluded to in the fecond volume of this work; in which a paffage through confecrated rocks is defcribed as purifying the votary from the guilt of his crimes, and proved to have been in use in the ancient mysteries celebrated in the caverns of Mithra; the principal entrances into which, as into Stonehenge, Abury, and all other Druid ftone temples, was from the NORTH and the SOUTH, called in the Homeric defcription of the cave of the nymphs, commented on and amply explained by Porphyry, the NORTHERN and SOUTHERN GATES. At this very day too something, very much resembling the ancient notion and practice of purification in facred caverns, continues in vogue among the Hindoos in one of our own fettlements. In the ifland of Bombay, about two miles from the "town, rifes a confiderable hill, called MalabarHill, which, ftretching into the ocean, by its projection, forms a kind of promontory. At See Borlafe's Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 174 and 175. the the extreme point of this hill, on the descent towards the fea-fhore, there is a rock, upon the furface of which there is a natural crevice, which communicates with a cavity opening below, and terminating towards the fea. "This place," fays an author, to whose printed account of it I was referred for corroborative evidence of its existence, "is ufed by the Gentoos as a purification for their fins, which, they fay, is effected by their going in at the opening below, and emerging out of the cavity above. This cavity feems too narrow for perfons of any corpulence to fqueeze through; the ceremony, however, is in fuch high repute in the neighbouring countries, that there is a tradition, that the famous Conajee Angria ventured, by stealth, one night upon the island, on purpose to perform this ceremony, and got off undiscovered." CIRCULAR STONE MONUMENTS WERE IN- AN equal aftronomical mystery attended thofe famous circular ftone monuments of the Druids, I 3 Druids, fo numerous in Britain. They were, doubtless, intended to be defcriptive of aftronomical cycles, by a race, who, not having, or politically forbidding, the use of letters, had no other permanent method of inftructing their disciples, or handing down their knowledge to pofterity, For the moft part, the ftone pillars which compose them are found to be twelve in number, alluding to the twelve months; and many to confift of thirty, in reference to the number of years, which, according to the Druids, formed an age, or generation, and was one of their favourite cycles, or else to that of the days of which the ancient lunar month confifted. It is remark, able, that the circle of ftones, forming the grand area of the temple at Abury, according to Stukeley, confifts exactly of one hundred stones, in allufion to the century; of the two circular temples, inclofed in that grand area, the outermoft is compofed of thirty ftones, the innermoft circle of twelve, with an immense stone in the centre twenty-one feet high, which was indifputably the ftupendous gnomon, or ftylus, of that mighty fun-dial. That the Egyptian obelisks were, in the fame manner, used as gnomons, I have proved in the third volume of thefe Antiquities, and how how much, in general, the Oriental aftronomers were accustomed to ufe aftronomical inftruments of extraordinary magnitude, is evident from what we read in Greaves's PYRAMIDOGRAPHIA, and in Hyde, of the quadrant used by the Perfian monarch and aftronomer, Ulug Beg, which was as high as the dome of Sancta Sophia, at Conftantinople; or one hundred and eighty Roman feet.* Dr. Borlafe mentions four of these circles yet remaining in the hundred of Penweth, in Cornwall,† not eight miles asunder, which have nineteen ftones each, and he is of opinion they allude to the two principal divifions of the year, the twelve months, and the feven days of the week. It is, however, my opinion, that the Druids knew, and meant to record by this number, the celebrated cycle of nineteen years, fuppofed to have been first invented by Meton, the Grecian astronomer, but known to the Indians, and entering into their calculations, in the earliest ages of the world, and confequently to their disciples who emigrated to the Weft. * See Ulug Beg's Fixed Stars, and Greaves's Works vol. i. p. 80. + Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 191. I 4 As As all circular monuments of this kind, but more especially thofe confifting of twelve columnal ftones, were meant either as reprefentations of the difk of the Sun, or the revolution of his orb through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, fo all femi-circular ones fhadowed out the lunar phænomena; but fuch dreadful havoc has been made of these venerable veftiges of Druid fuperftition, and of their laborious detail in aftronomical fcience, that, in most of them, the exact number of ftones, of which they anciently confifted, cannot now be ascertained. Stonehenge, however, may be adduced as a magnificent inftance of the former affertion; and there are two others which have an undoubted reference to the lunar devotion, although conceived by fome.... antiquaries to have been formed for the purpose of theatrical exhibition. The one is in Anglesea, the ancient Mona, in a place called Trer Drew, or Druid's Town, a place too facred for theatrical exhibitions; the other is in Mainland, in the ifle of Orkney, and the crescent-like forms of both evince the original purpose of their fabrication. Mr. Toland, in his Hiftory of the Druids,* confirms this cir History of the Druids, vol. i. p. 89, et feq: cumftance, |