Again, the tail of the snake is conducted to the descending valley below _Bekamton_. [Illustration: TAB. X. _Stukeley d._ _Prospect of the Roman Road & Wansdike Just above Calston May 20. 1724. This demonstrates that Wansdike was made before the Roman Road._] Thus our antiquity divides itself into three great parts, which will be our rule in describing the work. The circle at _Abury_, the fore-part of the snake, leading towards _Kennet_, which I call _Kennet-avenue_; the hinder part of the snake, leading towards _Bekamton_, which I call _Bekamton-avenue_; for they may well be look’d on as avenues to the great temple at _Abury_, which part must be more eminently call’d the temple. This town is wrote _Aubury_, _Avebury_, _Avesbury_, sometimes _Albury_: ’tis hard to say which is the true. The former three names may have their origin from the brook running by, _au_, _aux_, water, _awy_ in _welsh_; the old _german_ _aha_. The latter points to _Aldbury_, or _old work_, regarding its situation within the _vallum_. Nor is it worth while to dwell on its etymology; the _saxon_ name is a thing of so low a date, in comparison of what we are writing upon, that we expect no great use from it; unless _Albury_ has regard to _al_, _hal_, _healle_, _gothicè_ [symbols] a _temple_ or _great building_. There are two heads of the river _Kennet_ rising near it: one from a little north-west of _Abury_, at _Monkton_, runs southward to _Silbury-hill_; this affords but little water, except in wet seasons. At _Silbury-hill_ it joins the _Swallow_ head, or true fountain of the _Kennet_, which the country people call by the old name, _Cunnit_; and it is not a little famous among them. This is a plentiful spring. It descends between _east_ and _west Kennet_, by the temple on _Overton-hill_, which is properly the head of the snake: it passes by _Overton_, and so to _Marlborough_, the _roman_ _Cunetio_, which has its name from the river. To conduct the reader the better through this great work, I must remind him of what I wrote in the account of _Stonehenge_, p. 11, concerning the Druid cubit or measure, by which they erected all their structures, that ’tis 20 inches and four fifths of the _english_ standard. For this purpose I have repeated the plate wherein the _english_ foot and Druid cubit is compar’d to any lengths, which must necessarily accompany us in the description. A ready way of having the analogism between our feet and the cubits is this, 3 foot 5 inches and a half makes 2 cubits. A staff of 10 foot, 4 inches, and a little more than half an inch, becomes the measuring-reed of these ancient philosophers, being 6 cubits, when they laid out the ground-plot of these temples; where we now are to pursue the track of their footsteps which so many ages have pass’d over.