Orkneys; next in importance are those in Lewes. They are found in Skye and Kantyre. There are several in Arran, and thence the transition is easy to the Isle of M.an, where they meet the English group in Cumberland.
The larger circles in the Orkneys are four in number; three of these stand on a long slip of land that divides the loch of Harra from that of Stennis. The fourth is at some little distance from the others, and separated from them by a narrow strait connecting the two lochs. Besides these there are several smaller earthen circles and numerous tumuli. The largest circle, known as the Ring of Brogar,[1] is 340 feet (100 metres) in diameter between the stones. These originally were sixty in number, ranging from 6 and 7 to 15 feet in height; outside the stones runs a ditch about 30 feet in width, and 6 in depth, but with no perceptible rampart on either side. Two causeways cross the ditch as at Penrith or Arbor Low (woodcuts No. 29 and 30) opposite to one another, but neither square with the axis of the spit of land on which the circle is situated, nor facing any of the four cardinal points of the heavens.
Next in importance to this is the circle at Stennis, about three-quarters of a mile distant. It consisted originally of twelve stones 15 to 18 feet in height. Only two are now erect, but a third was so not many years ago; and the fourth, of which now only a fragment remains, is represented as standing when the drawing, which forms the frontispiece to this work, was made.[2] The remains of a dolmen still exist within the circle, not however in the centre, but close to its side, one of the stones of the circle apparently acting as head-stone to it. Beyond the stone circle which measures 104 feet
- ↑ The account of these monuments is abstracted from a paper by Lieutenant Thomas, of H. M.'s surveying vessel Woodlark. It is the most detailed and most correct survey we have of any British group. It was published in the 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 88 et seqq.
- ↑ Four stcmes are represented as standing when Barry's view of the monument was published in 1807, and four are represented as standing in a series of etchings made by the Duchess-Countess of Sutherland from her own drawings, in 1805. If the elbow in the bridge shown in the drawing in the frontispiece is not a licence permitted to himself by the artist, my drawing is earlier than either of these. When I first purchased it I believed it to be by Daniel. His tour, however, took place in 1815. From the internal evidence this drawing must be anterior to 1805.
