On the south side of the town of Shap, six miles south of Penrith, we saw the beginning of a great Celtic avenue, on a green common. This is just beyond the horrid and rocky fells, where a good country begins. This avenue is seventy foot broad, composed of very large stones, set at equal intervals: it seems to be closed at this end, which is on an eminence, and near a long flattish barrow, with stone works upon it: hence it proceeds northward to the town, which intercepts the continuation of it, and was the occasion of its ruin; for many of the stones are put under the foundations of houses and walls, being pushed by machines they call a _betty_, or blown up with gunpowder. Though its journey be northward, yet it makes a very large curve, or arc of a circle, as those at Abury, and passes over a brook too. A spring likewise arises in it, near the Greyhound inn. By the brook is a little round _sacellum_, composed of twelve stones, but lesser ones, set by one great stone belonging to the side of the avenue: the interval of the stones is thirty-five foot, half the breadth of the avenue: the stones, no doubt, did all stand upright, because three or four still do; but they were not much higher then, than now as fallen, because of their figure, which is thick and short: they are very large, and prodigiously hard, being nothing else but a _congeries_ of crystals of very large sizes, of a flakey nature. Houses and fields lie across the track of this avenue, and some of the houses lie in the inclosure: it ascends the hill, crosses the common road to Penrith, and so goes into the corn-fields on the other side of the way westward, where some stones are left standing; one particularly remarkable, called Guggleby stone. The people say these were set up by enchantment: and the better sort of folks, as absurdly affirm, they are made by art. I doubt not but they are gathered somewhere off the surface, among the fells, and that here was a great temple of the old Britons, such as that at Abury, which it resembles very much, as far as I can judge at present; for the rainy weather, which in this country is almost perpetual, hindered me from making at this time a thorough disquisition into it. The ground it runs over consists of gentle risings and fallings, but in general declines toward the west: it is here, and for a great way further north, east and west, a very fine downy turf, and pleasant hills; or at least they seemed so after the rugged and barren views and roads we had just passed: but the country under this turf is a lime-stone, quite different from the stones of the avenue. In our journey hither the country is far worse than the peaks of Derbyshire, and nothing to entertain the eye but the numerous and rare cataracts; whole rivers, and the whole continuance of them, being nothing else; the water every where running among the rocks with great violence and rapidity: even the springs burst out of