13 FEBRUARY 1926, Page 29

CURRENT LITERATURE

AN INVENTORY OF THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE. VW—COUNTY OF PEMBROKE. (H.M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway. 63s. net.)

pus magnificent folio, dealing very fully with the antiquities of Pembrokeshire, attests the importance of the work that is being done by the Royal Commission on the Ancient Monu- ments of Wales. It is no mere' inventory but a full descriptive catalogue, with maps, plans, drawings and photographs, of

every historic site that the Commisgion could trace in a country which is exceptionally rich in remains of the past. Mr. H. H. Thomas has recently asserted that the circle of " foreign " stones at Stonehenge came from the Preseley hills in Pemr broke, where alone in Great Britain this special dolerite is

found, and his theory, which the Commission examines critically, involves the existence of a neolithic civilization in Pembroke, of which few traces are to be found, at any rate in the interior away from the coast. Thus the field-work in Pem- broke throws light on the great Stonehenge controversy. The Commission has not merely utilized printed material and the knowledge of local experts, but has found much new matter in the papers of Edward Lloyd, the seventeenth-century antiquary, and elsewhere. Old drawings, for instance, show the St. David's sculptures as they were more than a century ago. We cannot stress too much the value and interest of this admirable volume for all who care for the past.