This circle is formed of stones of various forms, natural and unhewn, of a species of granite; of a kind, according to Clarke, not to be found within many miles of this place. The largest is nearly eight feet high, and fifteen feet in circumference; most of them are still erect, but some are fallen. They are set in a form not exactly circular; the diameter being thirty paces from east to west, and thirty-two from north to south. At the eastern end a small enclosure is formed within the circle by ten stones, making an oblong square in conjunction with the stones on that side of the circle, seven paces in length, and three in width within. At the opposite side a single square stone is placed at the distance of three paces from the circle. Concerning this, like all similar monuments in great Britain, the popular superstition prevails, that no two persons can number the stones alike, and that no person will ever find a second count confirm the first. This notion is curiously illustrated by the various writers who have described it. According to Gough, Stukely states the number to be forty; Gray says they are fifty; Hutchinson makes them fifty; Clarke made them out to be fifty-two; others, more correctly, forty-eight. Southey says, the number of stones which compose the circle is thirty-eight, and besides these there are ten which form three sides of a little square within, on the eastern side, three stones of the circle itself forming the fourth; this being evidently the place where the Druids who presided had their station; or where the more sacred and important part of the rites and ceremonies (whatever they may have been) were performed. The singularity noticed in this monument, and what distinguishes it from all other druidical remains of this nature, is the recess on the eastern side of the area. Mr. Pennant supposes it to have been allotted for the Druids, the priests of the place, as a peculiar sanctuary, a sort of holy of holies, where they met, separated from the vulgar, to perform their rites, their divinations, or to sit in council to determine on controversies, to compromise all differences about limits of land, or about inheritances, or for the trial of greater criminals. The cause that this recess was on the east side, seems to arise from the respect paid by the ancient Britons to Baal or the Sun; not originally an idolatrous respect, but merely as a symbol of the Creator.