--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 8 published: 1900-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Stonehenge," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 8 (June 1900): 590–593.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera38unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera38unse start_page: 590 end_page: 593 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera38unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Stonehenge — STONEHENGE. [A wonderful structure is the Stonehenge. It is the oldest memorial of primitive faith and obsolete religious rites in the British Isles, its antiquity stretching far beyond the round towers of Iceland, which are believed to have been the "altars" of the fireworshipers, or the followers of Baal. A friend, now on a mission in England, has sent the following description of this wonderful monument, written by a Freemason who has regarded it from a masonic point of view. Our friend thinks that the religious readers of the Era may find delight in the article, and so it is reproduced. It may be of interest in this connection to note the following discussion from a recent English publication, on the proposed sale of Stonehenge: "We see that the military correspondent of the Times comes forward with a surprisingly frank endorsement of Sir Edmund Antrobus' cool request for £125,000 from the nation as the price of Stonehenge. It is very interesting to have this gentleman's opinion that action should be taken at once in order to prevent 'my friend, the owner' selling to America a priceless monument in the history of the English people. Nor do we quite understand the statement of facts presented by the Times correspondent. The purchase of the rectangle should be made, he says, by the nation so as to increase the training facilities for the army. But the army has already a right to use Salisbury Plain for the purposes of manoeuvres, and it does not need to purchase a privilege it already possesses. For our part, we have made a good many inquiries in well-informed quarters, and we should say that the opinion is strong that £125,000 is a preposterous price; £50,000 would be nearer a fair figure. Stonehenge must, of course, remain a possession of the nation; but we very much venture to doubt that Sir Edmund Antrobus will venture to sell it away from us if he does not get his £125,000." Editors. Controversy has ever raged round the secret of the celebrated structure on Salisbury Plain, and probably its mystery will never STONEHENGE. 591 be satisfactorily solved. To archaeologists and Freemasons these megalithic remains must always be a subject of paramount interest, and in spite of modern research the sentiments and best-loved traditions of ages will still cling round the imposing scattered mono liths at Stonehenge. Who built this monument and to what use was it put? Whatever its history it is said by some that the Druids had no share in it, so that the visitor who has hitherto loved to picture to himself the processions of white-robed priests, their mysteries and their sacrifices, is told that he will have lost his labor. On this subject Captain Pasfield-Oliver has said that we may still cherish the ideas of our childhood, "as doubtless the Druids saw these huge grey stones and wandered among their ruins, wondering as much as ourselves who built them. It is not impossible that these same Druid undertakers ruthlessly made use of the lesser blocks of stone material for the purpose of erecting the sepulchres covered with tumuli which abound in the neighboring Down, The Roman sappers, however, to whom nothing was sacred, were perchance the greatest demolishers, and I strongly suspect that what is known as Vespasian's Camp is built of material stolen from the primaeval acropolis of Stonehenge." Although Stonehenge is probably one of the earliest instances of operative Masonry in this country, it is curious how little can be said about this remarkable collection of stones with certainty. Circles, cromlechs, and other relics having a great resemblance to each other are to be found in various parts of the world, and Sir W. Ouseley describes a circle and a single upright stone which he saw in Persia as uncommonly like those at Stonehenge. He concludes they were Druidical. The strange monument on Salisbury Plain, thinks Mr. T. Andrew, F.G.S., would seem to betoken the commencement of the Masonic history of Britain. It stands upon the open plain about six miles north-west from Salisbury. The appearance, even at half a mile distance, is, he says, strangely weird and imposing; it is situated near the crown of a gentle slope, and advancing nearer to it, the beholder with the least imagination becomes more strongly impressed as to its origin and design; for however one may be struck with the magnitude of those masses of stone which — 592 IMPROVEMENT ERA. still remain in their places, by the grandeur even of the fragments confused or broken in their fall, by the consideration of the vast labor required to bring such ponderous blocks to this desolate spot, and by surmise of the nature of the mechanical skill by which they were lifted up and placed in order and proportion — it is not till the entire plan is fully comprehended that we can properly surrender ourselves to the contemplations which belong to this remarkable scene. There seems to be no doubt that the outer stone circle origi-. nally consisted of thirty piers, though only twenty-six can now be identified, either standing or lying in fragment on the ground. It seems almost equally certain that they were all connected by continuous stone impost or architrave, though only six of these are now in site. The diameter of circle is about one hundred this feet. Inside would be a circle composed of smaller stones at a short distance from one another, and numbering thirty-eightWithin these two circles stand the five great upright stones, form, ing a horseshoe, and inside that smaller stones similarly shaped. Since the publication of Sir R. Colt Hoare's plan their position may be considered settled. According to him the height of the outer pair is sixteen feet three inches, the intermediate pair seventeen feet two inches, and of the great central stone, as it now stands, twenty-one feet six inches. Mr. Fergusson says: "In their simple grandeur they are perhaps the most effective example of megalithic art that ever was executed by man. The Egyptians and Romans raised larger stones, but they destroyed their grandeur by ornament or by their accompaniments; but these simple square masses on Salisbury Plain are still unrivalled for magnificence in their own peculiar style." It is supposed that some of the stones were imported from Cornwall or Ireland. Locally they are termed blue stones, and they resemble some kind of Dartmoor granite. It is a matter for surprise as well as conjecture how these blocks could be transported from anything like a distance without machinery. However, as compared with Assyrian blocks and Egyptian monoliths their . removal is only child's play. It must have been tough work for the Britons to have dragged up these stones from the neighboring STONEHENGE. 593 bottoms, one of which, according to Dr. Maton's calculation, must be nearly seventy tons in weight. There is much support of the view that Stonhenge was erected — by the early Britons as a place of Druidical worship that it was, in fact, an open-air temple, where sun and moon were worshiped together with the hosts of heaven, and where human sacrifices were offered to these supposed deities; that it was also a civil court, in which causes of great importance were tried, and probably a kind of House of Commons for politics in general, such as they then were; and that it was also in the near neighborhood of the last resting place of their mighty dead. There are those, however, who hold a contrary view, prominent among them being Dr. James Fergusson, F.R.S. What, then, is the connection between Freemasonry and Operative Masonry — between the former and the phenomenon of Stonehenge? "Much in every way," replies Mr. Andrew, and to demonstrate which he observes that Masonry, according to the general acceptation of the term, is founded on the principles of geometry, and is directed to the convenience and enlightenment of the world. Masonry assumes the form of a noble science, distinguished by a series of peculiar rites and ceremonies, indicated by significant emblems, which are alone intelligible to the fraternity. It forms a universal language which is understood* by Masons of every nationality under heaven. A writer of the last century has thus described the universality of Masonry: — "Leaving holy ground, we trace Masonry among the Eastern Magi and in the renowned learning of Egypt, through which, like other sciences, taking a western direction, it was brought to the British Isles. Its principles were received and disseminated by Brahmins, philosophers, artists and saints. It taught natural religion, philosophy and arts on the banks of the Ganges, on the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the sanctuaries of Eleusius, the schools of the Sages, and the caves of the Druids." After inspecting Stonehenge, probably none will deny the evidence of much geometrical art, and also some, perhaps, not a little knowledge of astronomy. Ancient Masonry and Operative Masonry — are believed to have been one that is to say, wherever the company of Operative Masons was found, such was the respectability