John Sterling Kingsley

“ We may imagine the ancient workers filling all around the vertical stones of the dolmen with soil and then sliding or rolling the covering stone into position. But even this calls for an expenditure of an enormous amount of human strength. ”

“ The field of science is an expensive and difficult one for the isolated student to explore. Specimens are requisite and books are necessary, and these are most readily obtained by a co-operation of all who are interested, and this very co-operation for this purpose is the foundation of all scientific societies. ”

“ Science is becoming every day more prominent in our country, and our colleges are rapidly giving it that preference which has been accorded to the dead languages in the past, and this is a change for the better, for it is a fact that the American mind is a practical one. ”

“ But what are the alignments? Here we are in the region of speculation—pure guessing. One may pass by with mere mention the view that they, with the cromlech at the end, are gigantic phallic symbols. Le Bouzic thinks them funereal without being sepulchral in character. He thinks that they might have been connected with the religious rites. The spaces between the rows would afford passages for the faithful assembled for the celebration of the ceremonies, possibly in connection with the collective burials in the tumuli, while the cromlech was the place set apart for the priests. ”

“ An occasional naturalist from Europe landed on its shores to explore its wonders, and isolated persons made collections, which were duly forwarded to the Old World. It was not until some time after the Revolution that America possessed a single museum. Probably the first was Peale's Museum, in Philadelphia, which was established in the last century, and where might have been seen side by side a mastodon and a machine for producing perpetual motion. ”

“ Speakman alone attended to the business, that his partner might devote all his time to the pursuit of science. But the firm of Speakman and Say came to an untimely end by indorsing for unfortunate friends. After the failure, Say took up his quarters in the rooms of the society, making his bed beneath the skeleton of a horse, and living for several years on bread and milk, with an occasional chop or egg, during which time his food did not cost on the average twelve cents a day. ”

“ The library is one hundred and thirty feet long and thirty feet wide between the ends of the cases, with a gallery at the height of ten feet, and contains the largest collection of works on natural history—over 26,000 volumes—in America. The floor of the library is used for the meetings of the Academy, and will seat over four hundred people. From the entrance on Race Street, two short flights of stairs bring one to the museum, a hall extending the whole length and width of the building, with two wide galleries, giving a floor-space of more than three fifths of an acre. ”

“ There is not a place of 20,000 inhabitants in the country which should not be able to support a scientific society, and, though time would be required to accumulate such a library and such collections as those owned by the Philadelphia Academy, still no one should be discouraged, since no beginning could be more humble than the one we have described. ”

“ The number of young men who attend our colleges to-day is relatively smaller than it was a hundred years ago; and even of college students a large proportion become farmers or physicians, or follow mining, manufacturing, or mercantile pursuits, and to them science is of far more practical value than the wars of Cæsar or the "Birds" of Aristophanes. ”

“ As implied above, the isolated menhirs, usually placed on some spot a little above the surrounding country, have, in many cases, been found to stand near some burial, and hence it is probable that they are funeral monuments. Some may also have been boundary stones. The dolmens are also mortuary in character. Apparently every dolmen and allée couverte was formerly buried with earth or rocks, the whole forming a large mound—a tumulus or galgal. With the ages the earth in many cases has been removed, either by man or by the elements, leaving the strange "tables" as we see them. ”

“ Many of the stones have tumbled down and some have been utilized in building walls and houses. Thus the little church of St. Cornély at Carnac is built entirely of menhirs, broken up into blocks of convenient size, while the curious crown that surmounts its west portal was carved out of a single menhir. Le Rouzic, whom I shall often quote, says that the series of alignments once extended from a point to the west of the village of Carnac, five miles east to the Crac'h River, while other series occur further west, near Erdeven. ”

“ Here one must leave the road and go into the fields to see the monuments. Suddenly a one-armed man sprang up beside the carriage and led the way among farm outhouses, gardens and across vegetable patches, to the most remarkable of all these remains, which continually bring up the question, How could they have been erected? ”

“ Human interments often occurred at the isolated menhirs and associated with these are found only simple pottery and instruments formed solely of stone and bone. Not a trace of bronze or iron, except where it was clearly of a later and intrusive character. Arrow and spear points, ceremonial stones, etc., closely resembling those of our American Indians, would point far back in the history of western Europe. ”

“ It is cheaper to take the train from Auray to Carnac station on the little road to Quiberon, and then the little tram to Carnac village and to Erdeven. This brings one within easy walking distance of the principal alignments; but to reach the other monuments a carriage is convenient; even necessary, if one is to see the important menhirs, dolmens, etc., of Locmariaquer. Besides, the foot traveler will have to have a guide, otherwise he will waste much time and probably will miss much that he ought to see. ”

“ At Locmariaquer is also the largest of the dolmens, the "dolmen des marchands." I regret that I took no measurements of its size, especially since none are given in the works at hand. I can only depend upon my memory, aided by pictures, for my estimates. At its southern end is a passage about four feet wide and high enough for a tall man to stand erect. This is walled by vertical slabs of stone and roofed in with the same material. The passage leads to a larger chamber which is at least seven feet wide and high by possibly ten or twelve in length. ”

“ The largest menhir, which has fallen, is 21 feet in total length, while the smallest stands but a foot and a half above the ground. In Kerlescan the cromlech of 39 stones is quadrangular in outline with rounded corners, while the alignment proper consists of 540 menhirs in thirteen rows in an area 2,700 feet long with an interruption of 600 feet where the little village of Kerlescan is situated. The largest of the stones is thirteen feet in height, the smallest only two feet above the surface of the ground.
While dolmens and isolated menhirs occur all around Carnac ”

“ One reason why the ancients were deficient in museums was the lack of efficient methods of preserving the various forms of life: covering a body with wax or honey was not the best manner imaginable of rendering an object either interesting or instructive ”

“ There are menhirs (Keltic, long stones) which stand upright in the soil, usually upon the smaller end. Menhirs may be isolated, scattered here and there through the region, or they may be arranged in lines or rows (alignments) stretching across the fields. In certain places the menhirs form square or semicircular enclosures called cromlechs (Keltic, curved stones) . Again, the megaliths have been built into chambers, the walls composed of upright stones placed close together, and roofed in by one or more large blocks of stone. ”

“ He entertained the idea of educating all mankind, of establishing a university where all human knowledge should be taught, and was also a firm believer in, and strong advocate of, the "community system" ”

“ Another fact that also had much to do with the entire absence of any collection from the third until the sixteenth centuries was that all studies of nature were regarded as strongly savoring of infidelity, and were therefore to be discountenanced. ”

“ Speculations as to the time at which these monuments were erected, the people who put them in position and the purposes for which they were intended are numerous in the literature of the subject, some of them as fantastic and absurd as those which ascribe the antiquities of
Fig. 7. Dolmen of Mané Rétual, Locmariaquer, foreshortened so as to include all of the roofing stones. Yucatan to the followers of St. Thomas of apostolic times. Usually they are attributed to that mysterious people, the "Druids," whoever they may have been. ”

“ Through this field, from the slight elevation at the west, down through the hollow of the road, and disappearing over the rise at the east, stretch eleven rows of menhirs, the rows being approximately parallel and about thirty feet apart, and the whole a little over three hundred feet wide while in length they extend 3,800 feet, or over two thirds of a mile. Some of the menhirs have tumbled down; here and there we note one built into the walls separating the fields but still occupying its original position. In all there are 1,099 stones still standing in Ménec. ”

“ Yet this is not conclusive, for these objects occur only in connection with human interments and one must make allowance for the well-known conservatism of the priestly class. Among other peoples the objects buried with the dead retained the primitive character long after the race had developed other forms in its daily life. ”