quite unknown, as is that in which cement of any kind was first employed as the medium of uniting masonry. They were both, doubtless, the invention of that race which we have mentioned as cultivators of land, to whom is due the introduction of architecture, properly so called. To them solid and durable edifices were necessary as soon as they had fixed upon a spot for the settlement of themselves and their families. 9. Chaldæa, Egypt, Phoenicia, and China are the first countries on record in which architecture, worthy the name, made its appearance. They had certainly attained considerable proficiency in the art at a very early period; though it is doubtful, as respects the three first, whether their reputation is not founded rather on the enormous masses of their works, than on beauty and sublimity of form. Strabo mentions many magnificent works which he attributes to Semiramis; and observes that, besides those in Babylonia, there were monuments of Babylonian industry throughout Asia. He mentions Aópoi (high altars), and strong walls and battlements to various cities, as also subterranean passages of communication, aqueducts for the conveyance of water under ground, and passages of great length, upwards, by stairs. Bridges are also mentioned by him (lib. xvi.). Moses has preserved the names of three cities in Chaldæa which were founded by Nimrod (Gen. x. 10.). Ashur, we are told, built Nineveh; and (Gen. xix. 4.) as early as the age of Jacob and Abraham, towns had been established in Palestine. The Chinese attribute to Fohi the encircling of cities and towns with walls; and in respect of Egypt, there is no question that in Homer's time the celebrated city of Thebes had been long in existence. The works in India are of very early date; and we shall hereafter offer some remarks, when speaking of the extraordinary monument of Stonehenge, tending to prove, as Jacob Bryant supposes, that the earliest buildings of both nations, as well as those of Phoenicia and other countries, were erected by colonies of some great original nation. If the Peruvians and Mexicans, without the aid of carriages and horses, without scaffolding, cranes, and other machines used in building, without even the use of iron, were enabled to raise monuments which are still the wonder of travellers, it would seem that the mechanical arts were not indispensable to the progress of architecture; but it is much more likely that these were understood at an exceedingly remote period in Asia, and in so high a degree as to have lent their aid in the erection of some of the stupendous works to which we have alluded. 10. The art of working stone, which implies the use of iron and a knowledge of the method of tempering it, was attributed to Athôthis, the successor of Menes. It seems, however, possible that the ancients were in possession of some secret for preparing bronze tools which were capable of acting upon stone. Be that as it may, no country could have been called upon earlier than Egypt to adopt stone as a material, for the climate does not favour the growth of timber; hence stone, marble, and granite were thus forced into use; and we know that, besides the facility of transport by means of canals, as early as the time of Joseph waggons were in use. (Gen. xlv. 19.) We shall hereafter investigate the hypothesis of the architecture of Greece being founded upon types of timber buildings, merely observing here, by the way, that many of the columns and entablatures of Egypt had existence long before the earliest temples of Greece, and therefore that, without recurrence to timber construction, prototypes for Grecian architecture are to be found in the venerable remains of Egypt, where it is quite certain wood was not generally employed as a material, and where the subterranean architecture of the country offers a much more probable origin of the style. CHAP. II. ARCHITECTURE OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES. SECT. I. DRUIDICAL AND CELTIC ARCHITECTURE. 11. If rudeness, want of finish, and the absence of all appearance of art, be criteria for judgment on the age of monuments of antiquity, the wonderful remains of Abury and Stonehenge must be considered the most ancient that have preserved their form so as to indicate the original plan on which they were constructed. The late Mr. Godfrey Higgins, a gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, in his work on the Celtic Druids (published 1829), has shown, as we think satisfactorily, that the Druids of the British Isles were a colony of the first race of people, learned, enlightened, and descendants of the persons who escaped the deluge on the borders of the Caspian Sea; that they were the earliest occupiers of Greece, Italy, France, and Britain, and arrived in those places by a route nearly along the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude; that, in a similar manner, colonies advanced from the same great nation by a southern line through Asia, peopling Syria and Africa, and arriving at last by sea through the Pillars of Hercules at Britain; that the languages of the western world were the same, and that one system of letters-viz. that of the Irish Druids-pervaded the whole, was common to the British Isles and Gaul, to the inhabitants of Italy, Greece, Syria, Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan; and that one of the two alphabets (of the same system) in which the Irish MSS. are written-viz. the Beth-luis-nion-came by Gaul through Britain to Ireland; and that the other—the Bobeloth—came through the Straits of Gibraltar. Jacob Bryant thinks that the works called Cyclopean were executed at a remote age by colonies of some great original nation; the only difference between his opinion and that of Mr. Higgins being, that the latter calls them Druids, or Celts, from the time of the dispersion above alluded to. 12. The unhewn stones, whose antiquity and purport is the subject of this section, are found in Hindostan, where they are denominated "pandoo koolies," and are attributed to a fabulous being named Pandoo and his sons. With a similarity of character attesting their common origin, we find them in India, on the shores of the Levant and Mediterranean, in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, in France, and on the shores of Britain from the Straits of Dover to the Land's End in Cornwall, as well as in many of the interior parts of the country. They are classed as follows: 1. The single stone, pillar, or obelisk. 2. Circles of stones of different number and arrangement. 3. Sacrificial stones. 4. Cromlechs and cairns. 5. Logan stones. 6. Tolmen or colossal stones. 13. (1.) Single Stones. Passages abound in Scripture in which the practice of erecting single stones is recorded. The reader on this point may refer to Gen. xxviii. 18., Judges, ix. 6., 1 Sam. vii. 12., 2 Sam. xx. 8., Joshua, xxiv. 27. The single stone might be an emblem of the generative power of Nature, and thence an object of idolatry. That mentioned in the first scriptural reference, which Jacob set up in his journey to visit Laban, his uncle, and which he had used for his pillow, seems, whether from the vision he had while sleeping upon it, or from some other cause, to have become to him an object of singular veneration; for he set it up, and poured oil upon it, and called it "Bethel" (the house of God). It is curious to observe that some pillars in Cornwall, assumed to have been erected by the Phonicians, still retain the appellation Bothel. At first, these stones were of no larger dimension than a man could remove, as in the instance just cited, and that of the Gilgal of Joshua (Josh. iv. 20.); but that which was set up under an oak at Shechem (ibid. xxiv, 26.), was a great stone. And here we may notice another singular coincidence, that of the Lothel in Cornwall being set up in a place which, from its proximity to an oak which was near the spot, was called Bothel-ac; the last syllable being the Saxon for an oak. It appears from the Scriptures that these single stones were raised on various occasions; sometimes, as in the case of Jacob's Bethel and of Samuel's Ebenezer, to commemorate instances of divine interposition; sometimes to record a covenant, as in the case of Jacob and Laban (Gen. xxxi. 48.); sometimes, like the Greek stela, as sepulchral stones, as in the case of Rachel's grave (Gen. xxxvi. 20.), 1700 years B.C., according to the usual reckoning. They were occasionally, also, set up to the memory of individuals, as in the instance of Absalom's pillar and others. The pillars and altars of the patriarchs appear to have been erected in honour of the only true God, Jehovah; but wherever the Canaanites appeared, they seem to have been the objects of idolatrous worship, and to have been dedicated to Baal or the sun, or the other false deities whose altars Moses ordered the Israelites to destroy. The similarity of pillars of single stones almost at the opposite sides of the earth, leaves no doubt in our mind of their being the work of a people of one common origin widely scattered; and the hypotheses of Bryant and Higgins sufficiently account for their appearance in places so remote from each other. In consequence, says the latter writer, of some cause, no matter what, the Hive, after the dispersion, casted and sent forth its swarms. One of the largest descended, according to Genesis (x. 2.), from Gomer, went north, and then west, pressed by succeeding swarms, till it arrived at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately colonised Britain. Another branch, observes the same author, proceeded through Sarmatia southward to the Euxine (Cimmerian Bosphorus); another to Italy, founding the states of the Umbrii and the Cimmerii, at Cuma, near Naples. Till the time of the Romans these different lines of march, like so many sheepwalks, were without any walled cities. Some of the original tribe found their way into Greece, and between the Carpathian mountains and the Alps into Gaul, scattering a few stragglers as they passed into the beautiful valleys of the latter, where traces of them in Druidical monuments and language are occasionally found. Wherever they settled, if the conjecture is correct, they employed themselves in recovering the lost arts of their ancestors. 14. To the Canaanites of Tyre and Sidon may be chiefly attributed the introduction of these primeval works into Britain. The Tyrians, inhabiting a small slip of barren land, were essentially and necessarily a commercial people, and became the most expert and adventurous sailors of antiquity. It has been supposed that the constancy of the needle to the pole," that path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen," was known to the Tyrians; and, indeed, it seems scarcely possible that, by the help of the stars alone, they should have been able to maintain a commerce for tin on the shores of Britain, whose western coast furnished that metal in abundance, and whose islands (the Scilly) were known by the title of Cassiterides, or tin islands. In this part of Britain there seems unquestionable evidence that they settled a colony, and were the architects of Stonehenge, Abury, and other similar works in the British islands. In these they might have been assisted by that part of the swarm which reached our shores through Gaul; or it is possible that the works in question may be those of the latter only, of whom traces exist in Britany at the monument of Carnac, whereof it is computed 4000 stones still remain. From among the number of pillars of this kind still to be seen in England, we give (fig. 3.) that standing at Rudstone, in the east riding of Yorkshire. It is described by Drake, in his Eboracum, as "coarse rag stone or millstone grit, and its weight is computed at between 40 and 50 tons. In form (the sides being slightly concave) it approaches to an ellipse on the plan, the breadth being 5 ft. 10 in., and the thickness 2 ft. 3 in., in its general dimensions. Its height is 24 ft. ; and, according to a brief account communicated to the late Mr. Pegge, in the year 1769 (Archeologia, vol. v. p. 95.), its depth underground equals its height above, as appeared from an experiment made by the late Sir William Strickland." 15. (2.) Circles of Stone.-The Israelites were in the habit of arranging stones to represent the twelve tribes of Israel (Exod. xxiv. 4.), and for another purpose. (Deut. xxvii. 2.) And in a circular form we find them set up by Joshua's order on the passage of the Israelites through Jordan to Gilgal (ba); a word in which the radical Gal or Gil (signifying a wheel) is doubled to denote the continued repetition of the action. In this last case, Joshua made the arrangement a type of the Lord rolling away their reproach from them. 16. Though traces of this species of monument are found in various parts of the world, even in America, we shall confine our observations to those of Abury and Stonehenge, merely referring, by way of enumeration, to the places where they are to be found. Thus we mention Rolbrich in Oxfordshire, the Hurlers in Cornwall, Long Meg and her daughters in Cumberland, remains in Derbyshire, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, at Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, and in Westmoreland. They are common in Wales, and are found in the Western Isles. There are examples in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and various parts of Germany. Clarke, in his description of the hill of Kushunlu Tepe in the Troad, observes, that all the way up, the traces of former works may be noticed, and that, on the summit, there is a small oblong area, six yards long and two broad, exhibiting vestiges of the highest antiquity; the stones forming the inclosure being as rude as those of Tiryns in Argolis, and encircled by a grove of oaks covering the top of this conical mountain. The entrance is from the south. Upon the east and west, outside of the trees, are stones ranging like what we in England call Druidical circles. Three circles of stones are known in America, one of which stands upon a high rock on the banks of the river Winnipigon. The stupendous monument of Carnac in Britany, of which we have above made mention, is not of a circular form; the stones there being arranged in eleven straight lines, from 30 to 33 ft. apart, some of which are of enormous size. They are said to have formerly extended three leagues along the coast A description of this monument is given in vol. xxii. of the Archeologia; and in Gailhabaud, Monumens, 4to, Paris, 1842-52. 17. Abury, or Avebury, in Wiltshire, of which we give a view in a restored state (fig. 4.), is a specimen of this species of building, in which the climax of magnificence was attained. Stukely, who examined the ruins when in much better preservation than at present, says, "that the whole figure represented a snake transmitted through a circle;" and that, "to make their representation more natural, they artfully carried it over a variety of elevations and depressions, which, with the curvature of the avenues, produces sufficiently the desired effect. To make it still more elegant and picture-like, the head of the snake is carried up the southern promontory of Hackpen Hill, towards the village of West Kennet; nay, the very name of the hill is derived from this circumstance;" for acan, he observes, signifies a serpent in the Chaldaic language. Dr. S. then goes on to state, "that the dracontia was a name, amongst the first-learned nations, for the very ancient sort of temples of which they could give no account, nor well explain their meaning upon it." The figure of the serpent extended two miles in length; and but a very faint idea can now be formed of what it was in its original state. Two double circles, one to the north and the other to the south of the centre, were placed within the large circle, which formed the principal body of the serpent, and from which branched out the head to Hackpen Hill, in the direction of Fig. 4. West Kennet, as one avenue; and the other, the tail, in the direction of Beckhampton. Dr. Stukely makes the number of stones, 652 in all, as under: Stones. Stones. Stones. The great circle . 100 | Central pillar and altar, south Long stone. Cove jambs 2 Outer circle north of the centre 30 Inner ditto 12 circle Kennet avenue A stone he calls the ring stone Outer circle, south 30 Beckhampton avenue Inner ditto 12 Outer circle of Hackpen 40 Cove and altar stone, north circle 4 Inner ditto 18 Of these, only seventy-six stones remained in the circle was enclosed by a trench or vallum upwards ४५ Silbury hill," close to the Bath road, was probably connected in some way with the circle we have described, from the circumstance of the Roman road to Bath, made long afterwards, being diverted to avoid it. Dr. Owen thinks that the Abury circle was one of three primary cir cles in Great Britain, and that Silbury bill was the pile of Cyvrangon (heaping) characterised in the 14th Welsh triad; but the conjecture affords us no assistance in determining the people by whom the monument was raised. If it be in its arrangement intended to represent a serpent, it becomes immediately connected with ophiolatry, or serpent worship, a sin which beset the Israelites, and which would stamp it as proceeding from the central N stamen of the hypothesis on which Mr. Higgins sets out. See Observations on Dracontia, by the Rev. John Bathurst Deane, Archaul. vol. xxv. Fig. 5. PLAN OF STONEHENGE. "Eoliam Pitanen a læva parte relinquit, which is a picturesque description of Abury. 18. Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, about seven miles from Salisbury and two miles B 4 to the west of Ambresbury, is certainly more artificial in its structure than Abury, and its construction may therefore be safely referred to a later date. Fig. 5. is a restored plan of this wonder of the west, as it may well be called. The larger circle is 105 feet in diameter, and between it and the interior smaller circle is a space of about 9 feet. Within this smaller circle, which is half the height (8 feet) of the exterior one, was a portion of an ellipsis formed by 5 groups of stones, to which Dr. Stukely has given the name of trilithons, because formed by two vertical and one horizontal stone: the former are from 17 to 18 feet high, the middle trilithon being the highest. Within this eliipsis is another of single stones, half the height of the trilithons. The outer circle was crowned with a course of stones similar to an architrave or epistylium, the stones whereof were let into or joggled with one another by means of egg-shaped tenons formed out of the vertical blocks. The ellipsis was connected in a similar manner. Within the inner elliptical enclosure was a block 16 ft. long, 4 ft. broad, and 20 in. thick. This has usually been called the altar stone. Round the larger circle, at the distance of 100 ft., a vallum was formed about 52 ft. in width, so that the external dimension of the work was a diameter of 420 ft. The vallum surrounding these sacred places seems to have been borrowed by the Canaanites in imitation of the enclosure with which Moses surrounded Mount Sinai, in order to prevent the multitude from approaching too near the sacred mysteries. The number of stones composing this monument is variously given. In the subjoined account we follow Dr. Stukely: : Northwards from Stonehenge, at the distance of a few hundred yards, is a large single stone, which, at the period of its being placed there, has been by some thought to have marked a meridian line from the centre of the circle. 19. Fig. 6. is a view of the present state of this interesting ruin from the west. Mr. Cunnington, in a letter to Mr. Higgins, gives the following account of the stones which remain of the monument: -" The stones on the outside of the work, those comprising the outward circle as well as the large (five) trilithons, are all of that species of stone called 'garsen' found in the neighbourhood; whereas the inner circle of small upright stones, and those of the interior oval, are composed of granite, hornstone, &c., most probably procured from some part of Devonshire or Cornwall, as I know not where such stones could be procured at a nearer distance." 20. Authors have in Stonehenge discovered an instrument of astronomy, and among them Maurice, whose view as to its founders coincides with those of the writers already cited, and with our own. We give no opinion on this point, but shall conclude the section by placing before the reader the substance of M. Bailly's notion thereon, recommending him to consult, in that respect, authorities better than we profess to be, and here expressing our own belief that the priests of ancient Britain were priests of Baal; and that the monuments, the subjects of this section, were in existence long before the Greeks, as a nation, were known, albeit they did derive the word Druid from Spus (an oak), and said that they themselves were autoxloves (sprung from the earth). 21. M. Bailly says, on the origin of the sciences in Asia, that a nation possessed of profound wisdom, of elevated genius, and of an antiquity far superior to the Egyptians or Indians, immediately after the flood inhabited the country to the north of India, between the latitudes of 40 and 50°, or about 50° north. He contends that some of the most celebrated observatories and inventions relating to astronomy, from their peculiar character, could have taken place only in those latitudes, and that arts and improvements gradually |