F PREHISTORIC REMAINS

We still find in various parts of the country traces of the
prehistoric races who inhabited our island and left their footprints
behind them, which startle us as much as ever the print of Friday's
feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the last fifty years
we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man, and
have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year
B.C. 55, when Julius Caesar attempted his first conquest of our island.
Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and
every year adds new knowledge concerning the Palaeolithic and Neolithic
races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We
have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense
archaeological value of these remains, and of their inestimable
prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that
so much has been destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.

We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic
structures, barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles,
hut-circles, and other remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these
islands. We have many monoliths, called in Wales and Cornwall, as also
in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word _maen_ or
_men_, signifying a stone, and _hir_ meaning tall. They are also
called logan stones and "hoar" stones, _hoar_ meaning a boundary,
inasmuch as they were frequently used in later times to mark the
boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. A vast number have been torn
down and used as gateposts or for building purposes, and a recent
observer in the West Country states that he has looked in vain for
several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's
End district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood,
where Athelstan fought and slew the Britons, you can see "the Pipers,"
two great menhirs, twelve and sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone,
which is really an ancient cross, but you will be told that the cruel
Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this stone,
and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the
Druids were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful
deeds.

Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they
are circles no longer, many stones having been carted away to mend
walls. If you look at the ordnance map of Penzance you will