Much might I recite to our purpose out of the ancient commentators on this passage, to which I refer the inquisitive. From the word _adytis_ we may be apt to conclude the tomb of _Anchises_ had a cove built upon it, as that we describ’d at _Rowldrich_. But to return. I apprehend the reader will scarce excuse me, if I make not some inference from that observation of the variation of the needle here from the cardinal points. Indeed in these works of antiquity, I would be as temperate as possible in multiplying conjectures; and to nothing more can I pretend in this case, and that too but in gross, for we want sufficient _data_. A future age may pronounce with more certainty, when we know the entire revolution of the circle of the magnetic variation. [Illustration: TAB. XXVII. Silbury Hill _July 11. 1723_. _Stukeley d._ A. _The Roman road._ B. _the Snakes head or hakpen._] Dr. _Halley_ supposes the whole period is perform’d in about the space of 700 years. I am sufficiently satisfy’d from considering the different effect of the weather between _Abury_ and _Stonehenge_, the great diversity in the manner of the works, and some other considerations, that _Abury_ must be above 700 years prior in time to _Stonehenge_. But if we take two entire revolutions, 1400 years, and set it 460 years before the christian _æra_, the supposed time of the building of _Stonehenge_, it brings us, in _Usher_’s chronology, which, I take to be the best, to the year of the death of _Sarah_, _Abraham_’s wife, which happen’d in the summer time of the 1859th year before Christ. This was a little before the time of _Inachus_. By the best light I can obtain, I judge our _Tyrian Hercules_ made his expedition into the ocean, about the latter end of _Abraham_’s time: and most likely ’tis, that _Abury_ was the first great temple of _Britain_, and made by the first _Phœnician_ colony that came hither; and they made it in this very place on account of the stones of the gray-weathers, so commodious for their purpose. _Usher_ makes this retirement of the _Hycsi_, or royal pastors out of _Egypt_, which was done by our _Hercules_, to be 34 years after that date. But my numbers make it somewhat later. [Illustration: Tho. Robinson ALBURIAE Jerostratus] CHAP. XI.