An attractive solution of the purpose of Stonehenge was put
forward at the British Association on Saturday last. Dr. Alfred Eddowes, addressing the anthropological section, advanced the theory thatithe building was a gigantic sun- dial. The thirty great upright stones with their intervals showed, in his opinion, that the circle was divided into sixty equal parts, the grooved stone having been used for supporting a pole, which formed the pointer of la sundial for daily observation or an indicator of the time of the year by the length of the shadow. Dr. Sebastian Evans, who presided, held that Dr. Eddowes had proved his point that Stonehenge had been used as an observatory ; but Mr. Arthur Evans protested against the attempt to introduce very precise and rigorous ideas into a rude monument, and contended that Stonehenge, which was on the site of an early Bronze Age cemetery, ought not to be regarded alone, but in relation to a large series of other stone monuments. One would like to know what is the date or period to which the oldest authentic sundial can be attributed.
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