ts, and the fourth, which is much larger,
serving as the covering stone.

In a field which we visit, not very far from Kit's Coty House, is
another group of stones, called the "countless stones." As we pass some
boys are trying to solve the arithmetical problem, which cannot be
readily accomplished, as the stones lie intermingled in a very strange
and irregular manner, and are overgrown with brushwood. The belief that
these stones cannot be counted is one constantly found connected with
similar remains, _e.g._ Stonehenge, Avebury, etc. We heard a local story
of a baker, who once tried to effect the operation by placing a loaf on
the top of each stone as a kind of check or tally; but a dog running
away with one of his loaves, upset his calculations.

[Illustration: Kit's Coty House]

Both the "Coty House" and the "countless stones" consist of a silicious
sandstone of the Eocene period, overlying the chalk, and are identical
with the "Sarsens," or "Grey Wethers," which occur at the pre-historic
town of Avebury, and at Stonehenge; the smaller stones of the latter
are, however, of igneous origin, and "are believed by Mr. Fergusson to
have been votive offerings." These masses, of what Sir A. C. Ramsay
calls "tough and intractable silicious stone," have been, he says, "left
on the ground, after the removal by denudation of other and softer parts
of the Eocene strata." We subsequently saw several of these "grey
wethers" in the grounds of Cobham Hall, and we noticed small masses of
the same stone _in situ_ in Pear Tree Lane, near Gad's Hill Place.

Speaking of Kit's Coty House in his _Short History of the English
People_, the late Mr. J. R. Green, in describing the English Conquest
and referring to this neighbourhood, says:--"It was from a steep knoll
on which the grey weather-beaten stones of this monument are reared that
the view of their first battle-field would break on the English
warriors; and a lane which still leads down from it through peaceful
homesteads would guide them across the ford which has left its name in
the little village of Aylesford. The Chronicle of the conquering people
tells nothing of the rush that may have carried the ford, or of the
fight that went struggling up through the village. It only tells that
Horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of Horsted,
which has long preserved his name, and was held in after-time to mark
his grave, is thus the earliest of those monuments of English