Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — Stonehenge. [ARTICLE]

Stonehenge.

Stonehenge istberemains of a vast stone circle or place of worship of an unknown sect, standing in Salisbury Plain, about seyen miles from the old city of Salisbury in England. It is generally considered to have been erected by the Druids, hut some antiquarians think it much older, ascribing it to the Phoenicians, who are known to have traded with Britons centuries before Christ. The most generally accepted account of Stonehenge ascribes its erection to King Merlin about the y > ar 500 A. D. in memory of the 400 Welsh nobles murdered by Hengist, the leader of the Saxons, in 472 A. D. Stonehenge consisted originally of a circle about SCO feet in circumference, composed of thirty upright stones about 10 feet high and 6 feet in diameter, with others of about the same size placed horizontally upon their tops; only seventeen uprights and seven imposts are in place. About nine feet inside this circle was another circle, consisting of forty single uprights, smaller than those of the outer circle. Within these circles was an oval, composed of five pairs of trilithous (uprights connected by an impost); and inside of this was a still smaller oval, composed of nineteen uprights. In the center of this was the altar, stone, fltteen feet long. All around is & ditch, and barrows, or burial motfnds, cover the country in all directions. It is suggested by modern student? of Ilosicrucianism that Stonehenge was a work of the Bosicrucians or of the flre-worsb.ip-ers.