preservation, and other circumstances, I cannot believe they are very old. If they were in Greece, or in Europe, or anywhere where they could be compared with other monuments, some useful inferences might be drawn; but they are so unique that this mode is unavailable. We have nothing we can confidently compare them with, and we are so entirely ignorant of the ancient history of Malta that we cannot tell in the least at what age she reached that stage of civilization which the workmanship of these monuments represents. We are probably safe, however, in assuming that they are pre-Roman, and as safe in believing that they are not earlier than the monuments of Mycenæ and Thyrns; in short, that they belong to some period between the Trojan and the Punic wars, but are most probably much nearer to the former than to the latter epoch in the world's history.
Sardinia.
It is a curious illustration of the fragmentary nature of society in the ancient world that Sardinia should possess a class of monuments absolutely peculiar to itself. It is not this time ten or a dozen monuments, like those of Malta, but they are numbered by thousands, and so like one another that it is impossible to mistake them, and, what is still more singular, as difficult to trace any progress or change among them. The Talyots of the Balearic Islands may resemble them, but, excepting these, the Nurhags of Sardinia stand quite alone. Nothing the least like them is found in Italy, or in Sicily, or, indeed, anywhere else, so far as is at present known.
A Nurhag is easily recognized and easily described. It is always a round tower, with sides sloping at an angle of about 10 degrees to the horizon, its dimensions varying from 20 to 60 feet in diameter, and its height being generally equal to the width of the base. Sometimes they are one, frequently two and even three storeys in height, the centre being always occupied by circular chambers, constructed by projecting stones forming a dome with the section of a pointed arch. The chamber generally occupies one-third of the diameter, the thickness of the walls forming the remaining two-thirds. There is invariably a ramp or
