with a tall frontispiece, which is formed of one stone, always carefully hewn and sometimes carved. On each side of the entrance two arms extend so as to form a semicircle in front, and when the circle is completed by detached menhirs, these are generally shaped into cones and carved. The whole, in fact, has a more advanced and more modern appearance than the nurhags, and, as I read the riddle, the inhabitants adopted this form, and that found in the nurhag at Iselle, after they had ceased to use the nurhag itself as a means of disposing of their dead, but were still clinging to the spots made sacred by the ashes of their forefathers.
That the nurhags are old scarcely seems to admit of a doubt, though I know of only one material point of evidence on the subject. It is that the pier of a Roman aqueduct has been founded on the stump of a ruined and consequently desecrated nurhag.[1] Some time must have elapsed before the primitive and sacred use of the nurhag had been so completely forgotten that it should be so used. But the passages above quoted from the 'Mirabilibus' and Diodorus show that in the first and fifth centuries B.C. nothing was known of their origin by these authors, and no other has ventured to hint at their age. In classical times they seem to have been as mysterious as they are now:—
"In the glimmer of the dawn
They stand the solemn silent witnesses
Of ancient days,—altars—or graves."
Balearic Islands.
The third group of monuments indicated above are the Talyots of Minorca and Majorca. Unfortunately our guide, De la Marmora, deserts us here. He went to explore them, but ill health and other adverse circumstances prevented his carrying his intent fully into effect, and we are left consequently very much to the work of Don Juan Ramis,[2] which is the reverse of satisfactory.
Externally they generally resemble the nurhags in appearance, and apparently have always chambers in their interior, but De la
