One further attempt at solution may be mentioned. The Rev. J. Griffith, as the result of examinations of ancient megalithic monuments, has submitted that the stones were erected in such positions in order to give a three weeks’ warning of the coming equinox or solstice (cf. p. 192 _supra_). Arguing from this assumption, and citing the alinements of churches in corroboration, he suggests that a similar interval of preparation was provided for in the orientation of some churches. As a rule--he refers evidently to Welsh examples--the older churches are found to be oriented for May and November, then come buildings alined for the equinox. “I find,” he says, “N. 76° or 77° E., and N. 80° or 81° E., to be rather common orientations[564].” [These figures refer to azimuths; subtracting the number of degrees from 90°, we get the “amplitudes,” 13° or 14° N. and 9° or 10° N., respectively. In other words, Mr Griffith found that many churches are alined at these angles North of East.] With these figures we may compare those of Hampshire, already given. The inference to be drawn from the Welsh churches is that the builders there commenced work at dates rather nearer the equinoxes than did their contemporaries of the South of England. Mr Griffith’s interpretation gives us a theory within a theory, and requires much further study and observation before it can be accepted. This chapter must not close without an allusion to those curious examples of churches in which the axes of nave and chancel do not correspond, but point to different points of the horizon. Such cases are often loosely described under the general term, “orientation,” but either they really represent double orientations, or, as some contend, the buildings were purposely constructed with an angular twist. The subject is usually treated as if the problem merely concerned the chancel, consequently, in works on ecclesiology, and in the semi-popular language of architects and antiquaries, a church possessing the feature now under consideration is described as having a “weeping,” “twisted,” “deflected,” or “skew chancel.” Manifestly, these expressions beg the question, for, unless it can be proved that nave and chancel are of the same age, and that the Eastern limb was purposely deflected, or that it was deflected at some subsequent re-building, it is possible that the nave is the portion which has been mis-alined. Hence we might equally well speak of a “weeping nave.” The matter is nevertheless unimportant, so long as we do not tacitly allow the popular term to hide the possibility of a re-building or a re-orienting of either limb of the church. By that one phrase, “weeping chancel,” we might be led to credit the old builders with ideas of which they were utterly unconscious, just as “Learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew.”