The whole of this temple, wherein the town of _Abury_ is included I have laid down in TABLE I, the frontispiece, done from innumerable mensurations, by which means I fully learn’d the scheme and purport of the founders. ’Tis comprehended within a circular ditch or trench above 1400 foot in diameter, which makes 800 cubits, being two _stadia_ of the ancients. A _radius_ of 400 cubits, one _stadium_, struck the inner periphery of the ditch, in the turf. This is done with a sufficient, tho’ not a mathematical exactness. They were not careful in this great measure, where preciseness would have no effect, seeing the whole circle cannot be taken in by the eye on the same level. The ditch is near 80 foot, which is 45 cubits broad, very deep, like the foss that encompasses an old castle. The great quantity of solid chalk dug out of it, is thrown on the outside, where it forms a mighty _vallum_, an amphitheatrical terrace, which hides the sight of the town as we come near it, and affords a good shelter from the winds. ’Tis of the same breadth at bottom as the ditch at top. The compass of this, on the outside, Mr. _Roger Gale_ and I measured about 4800 feet, _August 16, 1721_. The included _area_ of the temple containing about 22 acres, I observ’d to have a gentle descent, from the meridian line of it to the east, and to the west: carrying the rain off both ways. The north point is the highest part of the whole. About 35 feet or 20 cubits within the verge of this circular ditch, is a great circle of _great_ stones. The epithet may well be redoubled. These great masses are really astonishing, if we contemplate a single stone, and consider how it was brought hither, and set upright in the ground, where it has stood, I doubt not, 3 or 4 thousand years. But how is the wonder heightened, when we see the number one hundred, which composes this mighty circle of 1300 foot diameter! The stones of this circle, tho’ unhewn, are generally about 15, 16, or 17 foot high, and near as much in breadth. About 43 _English_ feet, measures regularly from the center of one stone, to the center of the other. Look into the scale and we discern these measures of the height and breadth of the stones. 17 feet is ten cubits; 43 feet the central distance from stone to stone, is 25 cubits of the Druids; so that the interval between is 15 cubits. Tho’ this be the general and stated measure, which was proposed by the founders, where the stones suited, and of the largest dimensions, yet we must understand this, as in all their works, with some latitude. The ancients studied a certain greatness: to produce an effect, not by a servile exactness no way discernible in great works, but in securing the general beauty; especially we must affirm this of our Druids, who had to do with these unshapely masses, and where religion forbad them applying a tool. But the purpose they proposed, was to make the breadth of the stone to the interval, to be as two to three. They very