ut neither they nor
Vandevelde, who likewise mentions it, really visited the spot.

The remains are not even mentioned in Carl Ritter's elaborate
compilation, the "Erd-Kunde," nor in Robinson or Thompson; but as I have
visited them five times, namely in October 1848, October 1849, September
1855, October 1857, and September 1859, I may as well tell what I know of
these monuments, which I believe to be of some importance.

The site on which they stand is a large open cultivated ground, nearly
opposite _Sarafend_, (Sarepta,) between the high-road and the sea, a
quarter of an hour south of the vestiges of _Adloon_, whose broken
columns and large pieces of tesselated pavement lie actually upon the
highway, so that our horses and mules walk over the household pavements,
or the road pavement of hexagonal slabs. Adloon may be at half distance
between Soor and Saida. It has been conjectured that the name is an
Arabic modification of _Adnoun_, and that again derived from _Ad nonum_,
meaning the ninth Roman mile from Tyre; but as far as my memory serves
me, that does not correspond with the real distance.

There are upright stones standing from four to six feet each above the
present level of the ground, but which may not be the original level.
There may have been a considerable rise accumulated in process of time.
The largest stone still shows six feet by a breadth of two. They
anciently formed a parallelogram, (not a circle, which is commonly
believed to be an emblem belonging to Baal-worship,) as may be seen in
the following plan, which represents their present appearance:--

[Picture: Ancient construction at Adloon]

The twelve stones marked _0_ are still erect; the rest, whose places are
marked by dots, are either prostrate on the ground, or have entirely
disappeared. Between them all are spaces of two or three yards each.
The stones appear to have been carefully hewn originally, though now the
edges are worn off, or pieces have fallen away from the substances of
most of them. They bear, however, no chisel-indications of having been
connected by lintels across the tops: they have not been placed as
trilithons.

Outside the parallelogram, at the distance of six yards, stand two other
stones of the same description, which probably served as a portal of
approach.

Within the enclosure is a depression of ground, in an oval shape, almost
filled up with weeds, which demands but little effort of imaginat